Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for Period:

Amarna period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A phase in the late 18th Dynasty, including the reigns of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Ay (1379-1352 BC), when important religious and artistic changes took place. The name is derived from the site of Akhenaten's capital at Tell el-Amarna.
archaic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Archaic, Archaic period, Archaic tradition
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: A term used to describe an early stage in the development of civilization. In New World chronology, the period just before the shift from hunting, gathering, and fishing to agricultural cultivation, pottery development, and village settlement. Initially, the term was used to designate a non-ceramic-using, nonagricultural, and nonsedentary way of life. Archaeologists now realize, however, that ceramics, agriculture, and sedentism are all found, in specific settings, within contexts that are clearly Archaic but that these activities are subsidiary to the collection of wild foods. In Old World chronology, the term is applied to certain early periods in the history of some civilizations. In Greece, it describes the rise of civilization from c 750 BC to the Persian invasion in 480 BC. In Egypt, it covers the first two dynasties, c 3200-2800 BC. In Classical archaeology, the term is often used to refer to the period of the 8th-6th centuries BC. The term was coined for certain cultures of the eastern North America woodlands dating from c 8000-1000 BC, but usage has been extended to various unrelated cultures which show a similar level of development but at widely different times. For example, it describes a group of cultures in the Eastern US and Canada which developed from the original migration of man from Asia during the Pleistocene, between 40,000-20,000 BC, whose economy was based on hunting and fishing, shell and plant gathering. Between 8000-1000 BC, a series of technical achievements characterized the tradition, which can be broken into periods: Early Archaic 8000-5000 BC, mixture of Big Game Hunting tradition with early Archaic cultures, also marked by post-glacial climatic change in association with the disappearance of Late Pleistocene big game animals; then Middle Archaic tradition cultures from 5000-2000 BC, and a Late Archaic period 2000-1000 BC. In the New World, the lifestyle lacked horticulture, domesticated animals, and permanent villages.
Atlantic period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Atlantic phase, Atlantic climatic period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: In Europe, a climatic optimum following the last Ice Age. This period was represented as a maximum of temperature and evidence from beetles suggests it being warmer than average for the interglacial. It seems to have begun about 6000 BC, when the average temperature rose. Melting ice sheets ultimately submerged nearly half of western Europe, creating the bays and inlets along the Atlantic coast that provided a new, rich ecosystem for human subsistence. The Atlantic period was followed by the subboreal period. The Atlantic period, which succeeded the Boreal, was probably wetter and certainly somewhat warmer, and mixed forests of oak, elm, common lime (linden), and elder spread northward. Only in the late Atlantic period did the beech and hornbeam spread into western and central Europe from the southeast.
Bonneville: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bonneville period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A time in the late Pleistocene Epoch about 30,000 years ago when a prehistoric lake formed covering an estimated 20,000 square miles (52,000 sq km), over much of western Utah and parts of Nevada and Idaho in the US. These conditions existed during the interval of the last major Pleistocene glaciation. Lake Bonneville shrank rapidly in size and, by 12,000 years ago, had permanently shrunk to a point where it had become smaller than the Great Salt Lake.
Bubalus period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The earliest phase of rock art in northern Africa, between 12,000-8,000 BC, in which large-scale carvings of animals appeared. These early engravings -- in southern Oran, in Algeria, and in Libya -- reflect a hunting economy based on the now-extinct giant buffalo Homoioceras antiquus or Bubalus antiquus (hence the name).
Burial Mound Period: CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The penultimate period of eastern North American prehistoric chronology, from 1000 BC to 700 AD. Formulated in 1941 by J.A. Ford and Godon Willey, the total chronology, from early to late, is Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Burial Mound, and Temple Mound. The Burial Mound Period I (1000-300 BC) covers the period of transition from Late Archaic to Early Woodland ways of life and is associated especially with the Adena culture. Burial Mound II (300 BC-700 AD) is associated especially with Middle and Late Woodland groups, especially Hopewell.
Chalcolithic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Chalcolithic period; Eneolithic, Copper Age
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Literally, the Copper Stone Age" a period between the Neolithic (Stone Age) and the Bronze Age from 3000-2500 BC in which both stone and copper tools were used. It was a transitional phase between Stone Age technology and the Bronze Age and an increase in trade and cultural exchanges. The term is much less widely used than other divisions and subdivisions of the Three Age System partly because of the difficulty in distinguishing copper from bronze without chemical analysis partly because many areas did not have a Chalcolithic period at all."
classic, Classic, Classical: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Classical Age, Classic Period
CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: A general term referring to the period of time when a culture or civilization reaches its highest point of complexity and achievement. In a broader sense, the term often describes the whole period of Greek and Roman antiquity with the following breakdown: Early Classical Period 500-450 BC, High Classical Period 450-400 BC, and Late Classical 400-323 BC. Specifically, the term describes, in New World chronology, the period between the Formative (Pre-Classic) and the Post-Classic, which was characterized by the emergence of city-states. During the Classic stage, civilized life in pre-Columbian America reached its fullest flowering, with large temple centers, advanced art styles, writing, etc. It was originally coined for the Maya civilization, initially defined by the earliest and most recent Long Count dates found on Maya stelae, 300-900 AD. A division between Early and Late Classic was arbitrarily set at 600 AD, but since in some areas, e.g. Teothihuacan, great civilizations had already collapsed, some scholars regard this date as marking the end of the Classic Period. By extension, the word came to be used for other Mexican cultures with a similar level of excellence (Teotihuacán, Monte Albán, El Tajín). In these areas the cultural climax was roughly contemporary with that of the Maya, and the term Classic took on a chronological meaning as well. The full Maya artistic, architectural, and calendric-hieroglyphic traditions took place during the Early Classic. Tikal, Uaxactún, and Copán all attained their glory then. In the Late Classic, between 600-900 AD, ceremonial centers in the Maya Lowlands grew in number, as did the making of the inscribed, dated stelae and monuments. The breakdown of the Classic Period civilizations began with the destruction of the city of Teotihuacán in about 700 AD. Some date the Classic period to 300-900 AD.
contact period: CATEGORY: chronology; term
DEFINITION: The period in the history and culture of the Americas when the first impact of the Europeans was made.
Coptic period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Chronological phase in Egypt lasting from the end of the Roman period, c 395 AD, until the Islamic conquest, c 641 AD. It is also described as the 'Christian' period and is roughly equivalent to the Byzantine period elsewhere in the Near East.
Dynastic Period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Dynastic Egypt
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period of ancient Egypt's history tied to a framework of 30 dynasties (ruling houses) of kings, or pharaohs, who rule from the time of the country's unification into a single kingdom in c 3100 BC until its conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. The two Predynastic kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united by the legendary king Menes, possibly to be identified with the historical King Narmer. The Dynastic Period was followed by a Greek Period when the country was ruled by the Ptolemys, descendants of Alexander the Great's general. The Ptolemaic Period and Egypt's independence were brought to an end in 30 BC when Queen Cleopatra VII died and the country was absorbed into the Roman Empire. The political history, largely derived from written sources, has a detailed and, for the most part, precise chronology. From the 21st Dynasty onwards, Egypt's cohesion broke, and from the 11th-7th centuries BC, Libyan, Asian and Nubian contenders vied with Egyptians for control of the state. The divine ruler, the pharaoh, was ultimately responsible for the complex bureaucracy and was also the figurehead of the official religion, the personification of the sun god Ra, counterpart of Osiris, the god of the land of the dead. Because of their belief in the afterlife, the royal tombs of the pharaohs in particular reflect the great wealth and concentration of resources at the pharaoh's disposal. Much of our information about ancient Egyptian history comes from the records that were carefully maintained by the Egyptians themselves, notably by the priests who were regarded as the guardians of the state's accumulated wisdom.
Early Dynastic period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Archaic Period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A chronological phase in southern Mesopotamia between c 2900-2330 BC, ending with the founding of the Dynasty of Akkad. It was also known as the Pre-Sargonid period. The Sumerian city-states flourished under their separate dynastic rulers -- Ur, Umma, Kish, and Lagash. The period is 3100-2450 BC on what is called the high chronology" (the other being the "medium chronology"). The term itself is derived from the Sumerian 'king list' which implies that Sumer was ruled by kings at this stage although archaeological evidence for the existence of kingship is meager before the middle of the period. Traditionally it is divided by archaeologists into three subdivisions -- ED I II and III -- each of approximately 200 years duration. The Royal Tombs of Ur belong the ED III period. The Early Dynastic phase shows clear continuity from the preceding Jemdet Nasr and represents a period of rapid political cultural and artistic development. Within the period the pictographic writing of the earlier period developed into the standardized cuneiform script. This period represents the earliest conjunction of archaeological and written evidence for the history of southern Mesopotamia."
Early Intermediate period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period of development of distinctive regional cultures in the central Andes of South America, c 1-600 AD (also said to be c 300-600 AD). The period was characterized by nationalism, full population, first large-scale irrigation works in coastal valleys, interregional warfare, construction of forts, craft specialization, social class distinctions, rise of first great Peruvian cities. Two of the better-known cultures are the Moche and Nasca civilizations. The Middle Horizon emerged from these expansions.
Eastern Zhou [Chou] period: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The latter part of the Zhou dynasty, from 770 BC to the extinction of the Zhou royal house in 256 BC. The term also refers to the period up to the founding of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC.
fallow period: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The time allowed for a field to rest, when no crops are grown on it.
First Intermediate Period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Chronological phase, c 2130-1938 BC) between the Old Kingdom (2575-2130 BC) and the Middle Kingdom (1938-1600 BC), which appears to have been a time of relative political disunity and instability. The period includes the 9th dynasty (c 2130-2080 BC), 10th dynasty (c 2080-1970 BC), and the 11th dynasty (c 2081-1938 BC). The 9th dynasty (c. 2130-2080 BC). (The period corresponds to Manetho's 7th to 10th Dynasties and the early part of the 11th Dynasty.) After the end of the 8th dynasty, the throne passed to kings from Heracleopolis, who made their native city the capital. Major themes of inscriptions of the period are the provision of food supplies for people in times of famine and the promotion of irrigation works. In the 10th dynasty, a period of generalized conflict focused on twin dynasties at Thebes and Heracleopolis. The 11th dynasty made Thebes its capital. In the First Intermediate Period, monuments were erected by a larger section of the population and, in the absence of central control, internal dissent and conflicts of authority became visible in public records. Nonroyal individuals took over some of the privileges of royalty, notably identification with Osiris in the hereafter and the use of the Pyramid Texts. These were incorporated into a more extensive corpus inscribed on coffins -- the Coffin Texts -- and continued to be inscribed during the Middle Kingdom.
Five Dynasties period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: In Chinese history, period of time between the fall of the T'ang dynasty (AD 907) and the founding of the Sung (Song) dynasty (960), when five would-be dynasties followed one another in quick succession in North China. The era coincides with the Ten Kingdoms -- the 10 regimes which dominated separate regions of South China -- during the same period.
Formative: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pre-Classic, Formative period; Preclassic
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A cultural stage in North America when agriculture and village settlement were developed, accompanied by pottery, weaving, stonecarving, and ceremonial objects and architecture. In the New World, especially Mesoamerica, it is also called the Pre-Classic period and preceded the Classic period. The period was also characterized by initial complex societies (chiefdoms) and long-distance trade networks. In Mesoamerica, it is divided into Early (2000-1000 BC), Middle (1000-300 BC), and Late (300 BC-300 AD). In Andea South America, the period is usually framed within the period 1800-1 BC -- and includes the Initial Period and Early Horizon. It begins with the introduction of ceramics. This occurred c 7600 bp in Amazonia and c 5200 bp in northwest Columbia.
Great Silla Dynasty: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Unified Silla period
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: First unification of Korean peninsula under single rule (668-935 AD). The Unified Silla period produced more granite Buddhist images and pagodas than any other period and the T'ang Dynasty of China exerted considerable influence over the culture.
Great Tombs period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kofun
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period in Japanese history, 4th-7th century AD, known for round tombs covered by a mound with a square platform off to the side, making a keyhole shape. Towards end of period, tombs were very large and surrounded by a moat, and earthenware figures and models (Haniwa) were placed in a series of concentric rings around the tomb. Inside was a chamber of stone slabs, probably adopted from cist tomb of northeast Asia. Burial goods included bronze mirrors, Chinese-type swords, magatama (fine polished stone ornaments), and Sue Ware pottery.
half-life: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: half-value period, radioactive half-life
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The time taken for half of a given amount of a radioactive substance to decay into a non-radioactive substance. It is also defined as the time taken for half the quantity of a radioactive isotope in a sample to decay and form a stable element. It is the basis of radiocarbon and other radiometric dating methods. This decay rate, expressed as a statistical constant, is different for each isotope. If a sample, such as a piece of wood, has half of the original amount of radiocarbon remaining, then a time equivalent to the half-life has passed since it died. The half-life of radiocarbon is 5730 ? 40 years, while the half-life of radioactive potassium, used in potassium-argon dating is 1.3 billion years. The half-life in effect determines the general age range over which a radiometric dating method is potentially useful.
Hallstatt: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hallstatt period
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A site on Lake Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps with a cemetery of over 3000 cremation and inhumation graves with great quantities of local and imported grave goods. There were prehistoric salt mines in the area. Hallstatt is also a late Bronze age and early Iron Age cultural tradition, c 1200-6000 BC in continental temperate Europe. The term also refers to a cultural period of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in central Europe, divided into four phases, Hallstatt A, B, C, and D. In central European archaeology the terms Hallstatt A (12th and 11th centuries BC) and Hallstatt B (10th-8th centuries BC) are used as a chronological framework for the urnfield cultures of the Late Bronze Age. The first iron objects north of the Alps appear at the close of this period, and the Iron Age proper begins with the Hallstatt C (or I) stage of the 7th century BC. The area of fullest development is Bohemia, upper Austria and Bavaria, where hillforts were constructed and the dead were sometimes interred on or with a four-wheeled wagon, covered by a mortuary house below a barrow. Sheet bronze was still used for armor, vessels, and decorative metalwork, but the characteristic weapon was a long iron sword (or bronze copy). These swords are found as far afield as southeast England, in the so-called 'Iron Age A' cultures. During the Hallstatt D (or II) period, in the 6th century, the most advanced cultures are found further west, in Burgundy, Switzerland, and the Rhineland. Wagon burials are still prominent and trade brought luxury objects from the Greek and Etruscan cities around the Mediterranean. By the close of this period in the mid-5th century BC, elements of Hallstatt culture are found from southern France to Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The Hallstatt precedes the La Tène period; the Hallstatt Iron Age culture certainly developed out of the Urnfield Bronze Age groups.
Hellenistic period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hellenistic and Roman period; hellenistic
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: Period of widest Greek influence, the era between the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) and the rise of the Roman Empire (27/30 BC), when a single, uniform civilization, based on Greek traditions, prevailed all over the ancient world, from India, in the east, to Spain, in the west. During these three centuries, Greek culture crossed many political frontiers and spread through many cities founded at that time, especially the new capitals of Alexandria, Antioch, and Pergamum. A common civilization became established throughout the known world for the first time, one which integrated the cultural heritage of each region and subsequently left a deep impression on the institutions, thought, religions, and art of the Roman, Parthian, and Kushan empires. Hellenistic cultural influence continued to be a powerful force in the Roman and Parthian empires during the early centuries AD. A common form of the Greek language, Koine [Greek: 'common'] developed, which was largely indebted to Attic Greek. The term 'hellenistic art' is applied to the post-classical material outside this geographic area, such as in Etruria or southern Italy.
historic period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Any period of the past that can be studied from its written documents.
Initial Period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The period of 1800-900 BC marking the introduction of pottery in Andean South America. It was also the time when agriculture and animal husbandry began to be the subsistence base for most cultures in the area. It is one of a seven-period chronological construction used in Peruvian archaeology. Its close is marked by the occurrence of Chavin materials and the abandonment of many of the coastal centers. Many of the traits that make up the Peruvian cultural tradition such as intensive agriculture, the widespread use of textiles, monumental ceremonial architecture, and larger and more numerous population centers, occurred during this period.
Integration Period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Late Period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The last stage of Ecuadorian prehistory, from about 500 AD to the Inca conquest (1550), characterized by greater cultural uniformity over wider areas. There is evidence for urban centers, class distinction, intensive agriculture, and high quality metallurgy throughout the region. The absorption of Ecuador into the Inca empire was the culmination of this trend. It is part of the chronological continuum -- Formative, Regional Development, Integration -- formulated by Betty Meggers.
Intermediate Periods: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: One of the three periods in Egyptian history when the country was divided into regional potentates instead of united. These periods occurred between the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, and Late Period. The First Intermediate Period was 2130-1938 BC, Second Intermediate Period was 1630-1540 BC, and the Third Intermediate Period was 1075-656 BC. In Andean/Peruvian archaeology, there were also Intermediate Periods. The Early Intermediate Period (200 BC-600 AD) was characterized by the rise of the first great city states, such as Moche and Nasca. The Late Intermediate Period (1000-1476 AD) was characterized by the presence of numerous fractionalized corporate units which arose after the decline of Tiahuanaco and Huari, e.g. Chimu and Aymara.
Japanese periodization: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A classification used by archaeologists and historians: Jomon 10,000-300 BC, Yayoi 300 BC-300 AD, Kofun 300-710, Nara 710-794, Heian 794-1183, Medieval (Kamakura, Muromachi, Momoyama) 1183-1603, Feudal (Edo/Tokugawa) 1603-1868, Meiji 1868-1914, Taisho 1914-1925, Showa 1925-1988, and Heisei 1989-present.
Jomon: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Jomon Period
CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: The earliest major postglacial culture of hunting and gathering in Japan, 10,000-300 BC, divided into six phases. This early culture, its relics surviving in shell mounds of kitchen midden type around the coasts of the Japanese islands, had pottery but no metal. The pottery was heavy but elaborate, especially in the modeling of its castellated rims. The term Jomon means 'cord marked', indicating the characteristic decoration of the pottery with cord-pattern impressions or reliefs. One of the earliest dates in the world for pottery making has been established as c 12,700 BC in Fukin Cave, Kyshu. Other artifacts, of stone and bone, were simple. Light huts, round or rectangular, have been identified. Burials were by inhumation, crouched or extended. The Jomon was succeeded by the Yayoi period. There are over 10,000 Jomon sites divided into the six phases: Incipient (10,000-7500 BC), Earliest (7500-5000 BC), Early (5000-3500 BC), Middle (3500-2500/2000 BC), Late (2500/2000-1000 BC), and Final (1000-300 BC). Widespread trading networks and ritual development took place in the Middle Jomon. Rice agriculture was adopted during the last millennium BC. The origins of Jomon culture remain uncertain, although similarities with early cultures of northeast Asia and even America are often cited.
Kofun: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Great Burial Period, Tumulus Period
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The name of the protohistoric tomb period of Japan, 300-710 AD, and the type of tumulus used for the burials. . Large tombs were built which were covered with artificial hillocks about 8 meters high, with burial chambers about 2 meters underneath the top surface. The burial chamber, enclosed with stones, contained coffins and various funerary offerings. The period when tombs of this kind were built in abundance was characterized by Haji ware and Sue ware. It is divided into Early, 4th century; Middle, 5th century; and Late, late 5th-7th centuries. The Kofun period falls between the Yayoi period and the fully historic Nara period and partially overlaps the Asuka and Hakuho periods of art historians. In their writings, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki texts, the culture was explained. Early kofun were built by modifying natural hills, as were Late Yayoi burial mounds. Haji pottery, used throughout the Kofun period, is very similar to Yayoi pottery and farmers lived in the same kinds of houses, using very similar tools. Technical advances over the yayoi period include irrigation canals and dams. There were also silversmiths who made the ornaments deposited in kofun and professional potters began making Sue pottery in the 5th century. Those in the fertile and well-protected Yamato Basin actively sought new technical and administrative skills on the continent and thus artisans came to make new kinds of pottery, ornaments, and weapons. Yamato leaders gained control over much of Japan in the 7th century and moved the capital to Heijo in 710. The magnificent kofun tombs indicate that the Yamato court based in the Yamato area (the present Nara prefecture) succeeded in bringing almost the whole of Japan under its control.
Korean periodization: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Classification of the eras of Korea by archaeologists and historians. The major divisions following the Palaeolithic are: Chulmun, 7000-1000 BC; Bronze Age, 700 BC-0 AD; Iron Age, 400 BC-300 AD; Proto-Three Kingdoms, 0 -300 AD; Three kingdoms, 300-668; United Silla, 668-935; Koryo, 935-1392; Yi, 1392-1910; Japanese Colonial, 1910-1945; Modern, and 1945-present.
La Tène: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: La Tene period
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The site of a great Iron Age votive deposit in the shallow water at the east end of Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Excavations revealed wooden piles, two timber causeways, and a mass of tools and weapons of bronze, iron, and wood (swords, fibulae, spearheads, etc.). Some of these objects bore curvilinear patterns which are the hallmark of La Tène (Celtic) art everywhere from central Europe to Ireland and the Pyrenees. La Tène has given its name to the second major division of the European Iron Age, which followed the Hallstatt period over much of the continent and lasted from mid-5th century BC until the Celts were subdued by Roman conquest c 50 BC. Settlement was characteristically in hillforts and, from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, massive oppida occur. As in the Hallstatt culture, there is a notable distinction between the markedly wealthy burials of chieftains and their associates, and burials of other members of society. The highest development, and the birth of the art style, took place in west central Europe from the Rhineland to the Marne. Contact with the Greek and Etruscan worlds brought wine, metal flagons, and Attic drinking cups into lands north of the Alps, and La Tène art shows links with that of the Scythians to the east. In Britain, contact with the continental La Tène cultures is shown by chariot burials and the presence of La Tène art motifs on metalwork and pottery. British cultures showing La Tène influence are sometimes grouped within an Iron Age B complex. In Ireland, which the Romans never invaded, a Celtic culture and an art style with La Tène elements persisted into the Early Christian period. It is subdivided into La Tène I c 480-220 BC, La Tène II c 220-120 BC, and La Tène III c 120-Roman conquest(at different times in different areas).
Late Glacial period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The closing stages of the Pleistocene Ice Age, when the glaciers had begun their final retreat and when much of northern Europe was tundra. This period lasted from c 13,000-8500 BC. The substages in northern Europe are the Oldest Dryas (13,000-10,450), the Bølling oscillation (10,450-10,050), the Older Dryas (10,050-9850), the Allerød oscillation (9850-8850), and the Younger Dryas (8850-8300). Cultures of the Late Glacial period include Ahrensburgian, Creswellian, Federmesser, and Hamburgian.
Late Horizon: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Upper Formative; Inca Period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of time in central Andean chronology, 1450-1533 AD, which corresponds to the Inca Empire's expansion from Cuzco. It is the most recent and briefest period of a chronological construction of Peruvian archaeology. The early date marks the point at which territorial expansion was virtually complete; the late date marks the passing of control to the Spanish under Pizarro. Archaeologists have come to distinguish the various peoples and civilizations by descriptive terms -- the Late Preceramic, the Initial (or Lower Formative) Period, the Early Horizon, the Early Intermediate Period, the Middle Horizon, the Late Intermediate Period, and the Late Horizon.
Late Intermediate Period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of time in central Andean chronology, 1000-1450 AD, which was a period of regional diversification on the coast and in the highlands. New styles, cultures, and kingdoms arose after the collapse of the Middle Horizon empires. The period began with the dying out of the signs of unity imposed by Huari. Warfare, secularization of urban centers, rectangular enclosure plan were prominent. The cultures and styles were Chimú, Chancay, Pachacamac, Chincha, Ica; Cajamarca, Chanca, Killke, Lucre, Colla, Lupaca. The various empires that developed during the Late Intermediate Period were conquered by the Inca Empire.
Late Period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A phase of Egyptian history, c 664-332 BC comprising the 26th-31st Dynasties, stretching from the end of the Third Intermediate Period to the arrival of Alexander the Great. Shabaqo (716-702 BC), the second ruler of the Kushite 25th Dynasty, exerted Nubian influence by moving the administrative center back from Thebes to Memphis. In writing, the demotic script, the new cursive form, was introduced from the north and spread gradually through the country. Hieratic was, however, retained for literary and religious texts, among which very ancient material, such as the Pyramid Texts, was revived and inscribed in tombs and on coffins and sarcophagi. The Late Period also saw the greatest development of animal worship in Egypt.
Late Woodland period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period of time, c 400-1000 AD, in the American Midwest, when populations spread west to the eastern slopes of the Rockies and were in contact with eastward-moving Puebloan people. A favorable agricultural period was indicated by the marked increase in village size and in population density. Areas along major streams were occupied by various interrelated cultural groups collectively known as the Plains Mississippian cultures. Part of this complex was connected to the developing Mississippi complexes to the east by diffusion and, to some degree, by a migration of such groups as the Omaha and Ponca from the St. Louis area by about 1000 AD. It follows the Middle Woodland era but lacks the elaborate Hopewellian artifacts and structures.
Magellan periods: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Magellan complex
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: A chronological sequence covering 8000 BC-1000 AD constructed on the basis of assemblages from Fell's Cave and the Palli Aike Cave in Patagonia, South America. The sequence is divided into five phases, describing a series of hunting and marine adaptations. The earliest assemblage (Magellan I) contains fishtail projectile points, signifying Paleoindian activity. Horse and sloth bones and the remains of three partly cremated Dolichocephalic humans, found in association with these points, have produced a single radiocarbon date of c 8700 BC. A shift to willow-leaf points occurred in Magellan II c 8000-4000 BC, which coincides with the disappearance of Pleistocene megafauna and widespread climatic change. Magellan IV-V are ill-defined but represent a continuing hunting strategy blending into a period of ceramic use.
Middle Woodland period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A term sometimes used to describe the time period during which the Hopewell culture flourished throughout the American Midwest, from roughly 50 BC to 400 AD.
Migration Period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The period of large-scale movement of peoples in western Europe during the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries AD -- including the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England. These movements are associated with the collapse of the Roman empire. Barbarians from beyond the Roman frontiers settled within many of the former provinces. The Migration Period is often extended to cover period from 3rd century AD to accession of Charlemagne in 800 AD.
Nara period: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A period in Japanese history, 710-794 AD, named after the new capital of Nara (or Heijo as it was then known), to which the court moved from Fujiwara. The capital was established there to secure greater centralized power. The palace buildings -- the dairi (the Imperial living quarters), buildings for ritual, and governmental buildings for administrative business -- were arranged in a plan imitating that of the T'ang capital of Ch'ang-an. No palace building is in existence now; but the lecture hall (Kodo) of the Toshodai Temple in Nara, believed to have originally been the Chosu-den (for court officials' important ceremonies) of the Heijo Palace, is suggestive of palace architecture of the time.
Neogene period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The upper division of the Tertiary system including the Miocene and Pliocene periods; latest of the two divisions of the Cenozoic Era (66.4 million years ago to the present). The Neogene includes the Miocene and Pliocene epochs (23,700,000-1,600,000 years ago) and is considered by some to encompass the time up to the present. The Neogene, which means new born was designated as such to emphasize that the marine and terrestrial fossils found in the strata of this time were more closely related to each other than to those of the preceding period called the Paleogene. The term Neogene is widely used in Europe as a geologic division, but is generally not employed in North America, where the Cenozoic Era is simply divided into the Tertiary Period (66,400,000-1,600,000 years ago) and the Quaternary Period (1,600,000 years ago to the present).
Old Babylonian period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Chronological period of c 2000-1600 BC when there were competing kingdoms in southern Mesopotamia which were eventually conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. The kingdoms included Isin and Larsa, important during the first half of the period, and the large kingdom created by Hammurabi, which flourished in the second half. The period was a time of increasing intellectual endeavors in literature, astronomy, mathematics, law, etc.
period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Any specific interval of time in the archaeological record, such as the Upper Paleolithic period. This term is often confusingly used interchangeably with phase and stage. A period is a true time division of the history of a large region (such as the Valley of Mexico or southern China) and does not necessarily imply any developmental characteristics. In archaeological context, it is a major unit of prehistoric time, usually containing several phases and pertaining to a wide area. It is a convenient term used to discuss the history of a complex area.
period interface: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The composite interface of a number of units of stratification which make up the surface of a period.
periodization: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: phasing
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The process by which the stratigraphical material from a site is arranged into periods and phases based upon stratigraphic, structural, and artifactual data.
Pharaonic period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The entire history of Egypt from the establishment of the monarchy in 2925 BC to the invasion of Alexander in 332 BC.
phasing: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: periodization
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The process by which the stratigraphical material from a site is arranged into periods and phases based upon stratigraphic, structural, and artifactual data.
Postglacial period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: postglacial
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period occurring following a glacial episode, especially that from the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age c 8300 BC to the present. The substages in northern Europe are: Pre-Boreal (c 8300-7700 BC), Boreal (7700-5550 BC), Atlantic (5550-3800 BC), Sub-Boreal (3800-1200 BC), and Sub-Atlantic (1200 BC to present).
Pre-Axumite period: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term applied to the developed societies of south Arabian origin in the northern part of the Ethiopian plateau, c 5th century BC - 1st century AD. South Arabian elements assimilated through influence of kingdom of Sheba into a culture developed from Neolithic. Texts engraved on stone using south Arabian script have been found. There is evidence of influence from Meroe, with Ethiopia as a crossroads for trade, traffic, and culture. These societies provided the base from which the kingdom of Axum rose to prominence during the first centuries ad.
Pre-Classic or Preclassic period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Formative period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period in Mesoamerican archaeology during which agriculture formed the basis of settled village life, c 2000 BC-250 AD. The earliest writing -- glyphs -- in Mesoamerica began in this period. The Olmec was the first culture to appear in the Preclassic. A similar level was attained in Peru at about the same time (Chavín). In many other areas life remained on a Formative level until the Spanish conquest. The final phase of the Pre-Classic cultures of the central highland forms a transition from the village to the city, from rural to urban life.
pre-Dynastic period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pre-Dynastic Egypt; Predynastic
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The period before recorded history in Egypt and before it became a unified state in c 3100 BC. The term predynastic denotes the period of emerging cultures that preceded the establishment of the 1st dynasty in Egypt. In the late 5th millennium BC there began to emerge patterns of civilization that displayed characteristics deserving to be called Egyptian. The accepted sequence of predynastic cultures is based on the excavations of Sir Flinders Petrie at Naqadah, al-'Amirah (el-'Amra), and al-Jazirah (el-Gezira). Another somewhat earlier stage of predynastic culture has been identified at al-Badari in Upper Egypt. Until recently, most of our knowledge of pre-Dynastic Egypt was derived from the excavation of graves. Pre-Dynastic communities appeared in the section of the Nile Valley immediately south of Asyut. Large settlements were established, notably that at Hierakonpolis. Some time after 5000 BC the raising of crops was introduced, probably on a horticultural scale, in small, local cultures that seem to have penetrated southward through Egypt into the oases and the Sudan. The food-producing economy was based on the cultivation of emmer wheat and barley and on the herding of cattle and small stock, together with some fishing, hunting, and use of wild plant foods. Highly specialized craftsmen emerged to build vessels, make copper objects, weave linen, and make basketry and pottery. A series of small states arose until around 3100 BC, the unified kingdom of Ancient Egypt came into being.
Preceramic Period: CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: The earliest of a seven-period chronological construction used in Peruvian archaeology, c 9000-1800 BC, starting with the first human occupation and ending with the introduction of ceramic artifacts. It is usually subdivided into six periods and is characterized by a variety of subsistence patterns and by a lack of ceramics. The first two periods (up to 8000 BC) represent a subsistence based on hunting. The third period, c 8000-6000 BC is seen as transitional from hunting to hunting and gathering. Period four c 6000-4000 BC had cyclical, seasonal migration. In Preceramic V, c 4000-2500 BC, the lomas dried up and people tended to be sedentary; agriculture supplied an increasing part of the diet. Large habitation sites, ceremonial centers and agriculture appear increasingly in Preceramic VI c 2500-1800 BC. There are lithic complexes in the Early Preceramic, followed by an Archaic Period with foraging populations and the beginning of domestic and ceremonial architecture. The Preceramic was followed by the Initial Period.
prehistory: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: prehistoric period
CATEGORY: related field; chronology
DEFINITION: Any period for which there is no documentary evidence and the study of cultures before written history or of more recent cultures lacking formal historical records. In the strict sense, 'history' is an account of the past recovered from written records, but such an account can be prepared from other sources, notably archaeology. The term 'prehistory' was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851 to cover the story of man's development before the appearance of writing. It is succeeded by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to give us a coherent account. Prehistory differs from history in dealing with the activities of a society or culture, not of the individual; it is restricted to the material evidence that has survived.
Protoclassic period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: In Mesoamerica, the period at the end of the Preclassic and immediately before the Classic period, c 50 BC-250 AD. It refers to the cultures of the Maya area which were transitioning between Preclassic and Classic.
protohistory: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: protohistoric era, protohistoric period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The period in any area following prehistory and preceding the appearance of coherent history derived from written records. It is a transitional time period between prehistory and recorded history, for which both archaeological and historical data are employed. There are several more detailed definitions, such as 1) a time when non-literate aboriginal peoples had access to European goods but had not had face-to-face contact; 2) periods during which historical documentation is fragmentary or not directly from the society being studied; and 3) the period of 1250-1519 AD in Mesoamerica, which followed the Postclassic and ends just before the Spanish conquest (there are historic documents for this period).
Quaternary: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Quaternary era; Quaternary Period; Quaternary System
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Major geochronological subdivision which includes the Pleistocene (c 1.8-2.45 million years bp) and Holocene (c 10,000 BC) epochs and marked by the appearance of near-humans and Homo sapiens. It is the second period of the Cenozoic geologic era, following the Tertiary, the youngest of the 11 periods in Earth history. These terms may also be applied to groups of deposits, which are described as the Quaternary 'System' and the Pleistocene or Holocene 'Series'. The base of the Quaternary System is defined by basal deposits that overlie Pliocene deposits. The Quaternary was marked by repeated invasions of vast areas of mid-latitude North America and northwestern Eurasia by ice sheets, the period is frequently referred to as the Great Ice Age.
Regional Development period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A term used in Ecuadorian archaeology for the period 500 BC-500 AD, when local adaptation led to the proliferation of regional cultures. The continuum Formative, Regional Development, Integration Period has also been applied to neighboring parts of South and Central America. Some of the Ecuadorian coastal variants produced fine pottery, elaborate figurines, and many small art objects. There are hints of Asiatic influence in the cultures of Bahía and Jama-Coaque, which occupied the coastland from La Plata island to Cape Francisco. The period is characterized by changes in socio-political organization and art styles and technology, which gave rise to region-wide rather than purely local cultures.
Roman period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The period of Roman political and military control, generally between 200 BC and 400 AD, but varying for different regions, depending on the date of conquest.
Second Intermediate Period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The time, 1630-1540 BC, when groups of Asiatic people appear to have migrated into the Egyptian Delta and established settlements. The Second Intermediate Period began with the establishment of the 15th Dynasty, called the Hyksos (c 1630-c. 1523 BC), with its capital at Avaris (Tall ad-Dab'a) in the Delta, and ended with the 17th Dynasty (c 1630-1540 BC), ruling from Thebes. The Second Intermediate Period was the consequence of political fragmentation and immigration and the time may have been somewhat impoverished.
soaking period: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The time during which the highest temperature of firing is sustained
speculative period: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The period in history of archaeology in the New World between 1400-1840, characterized by unsystematic and speculative interpretations about the past.
Sub-Atlantic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sub-Atlantic Climatic period, Sub-Atlantic Climatic Interval
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Last of the five postglacial climate and vegetation periods of northern Europe, beginning c 1500 BC (according to pollen analysis, though radiocarbon dating says c 225 BC). It is a division of Holocene chronology (10,000 years ago-present). The Sub-Atlantic Interval followed the Sub-Boreal Climatic Interval and continues today. It is a subdivision of the Flandrian, thought to be wet and cold, a trend started in the preceding Sub-Boreal period. There was a dominance of beech forests and the fauna were essentially modern. During the Iron Age, pollen analysis shows evidence of intensified forest clearance for mixed farming. Sea levels have been generally regressive during this time interval, though North America is an exception.
Sub-Boreal: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sub-Boreal Climatic period, subboreal
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: One of the five postglacial climate and vegetation periods of northern Europe, occurring c 3000-1500 BC or, according to some, 0 AD, based on pollen analysis. The Sub-Boreal, dated by radiocarbon methods, began c 5,100 years ago and ended about 2,200 years ago. It is a division of Holocene chronology (10,000 years ago-present). The Sub-Boreal Climatic Interval followed the Atlantic and preceded the Sub-Atlantic Climatic Interval. It was characterized by a cooler and moister climate than that of the preceding Atlantic period. It is a subdivision of the Flandrian, starting with the Elm Decline. Frequencies of tree pollen fall and herbaceous pollen rises, representing man's invasion of the forest in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. It is correlated with pollen zone VIII, and the climate was warm and dry. The Sub-Boreal forests were dominated by oak and ash and show the first evidence of extensive burning and clearance by humans. Domesticated animals and natural fauna were abundant.
Temple Mound Period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mississippian
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: Time period from c 800 AD to European colonization when Native Americans of the Mississippian tradition built large flat-topped earthen structures (platform mounds) designed to function as artificial mountains elevating their temples above the landscape. This period followed the Burial Mound period and is the most recent period of a chronological construction relating to the whole of eastern North American prehistory (formulated by J.A. Ford and Godon Willey). The periods are: Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Burial Mound, and Temple Mound. The Temple Mound period is divided into two sub-periods: Temple Mound I (800-1200 AD), the establishment and rise of the Mississippian Tradition; and Temple Mound II (1200-1700 AD), the peak and then demise of the Mississippian.
Thinis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tjene, This; Thinite period
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Upper Egypt where the 1st and 2nd Dynasties originated, according to the 3rd-century-BC historian Manetho. Thinis is located north of the Predynastic and Early Dynastic cemeteries of Abydos (modern al-Barba).
Thinite dynasties: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Thinite period
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The 1st and 2nd Dynasties of Egypt, c 3100-2686 BC, named by the Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century BC) for Thinis, a city near Abydos, where some of its kings were allegedly buried. Menes (c 3100-3040 BC) is considered the traditional founder of the dynasty.
Third Intermediate Period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A chronological phase (1075-656 BC) following the New Kingdom, when Egypt was divided. The north was inherited by the Tanite 21st dynasty (c 1075-950 BC), and much of the Nile Valley came under the control of the Theban priests.
Tumulus culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tumulus Bronze Age, Tumulus period
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Middle Bronze Age culture of the central Danube region in Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Bavaria, with burials beneath round barrows, dating c 1500-1200 BC. The heartland of the Tumulus culture was Bavaria, Württemberg, and the area previously occupied by the Unetice culture, but distribution extended into north Germany and west as far as Alsace. With the introduction of urnfield burial, the Tumulus culture and the Middle Bronze Age came to an end. It is defined mainly by the dominant burial rite of inhumation beneath a burial mound, as well as a number of characteristic bronze types, found both in the burials and in hoards. It continued earlier trends in ceramics and metalwork, though more elaborate in form and decoration.
Ubaid: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ubaid period; 'Ubaid culture complex
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A small tell of Ur which has given its name to a culture c 5000-3000 BC in southern Mesopotamia, where it underlies practically every city of Sumer. It later spread to the north, displacing the Halaf culture and becoming the first culture to cover the whole of Mesopotamia. It is distinguished by a well-made buff pottery, frequently overfired to a greenish color, and painted in dark brown or black. In the south, stone was scarce, but there were terra-cotta pounders, sickles, hoes, and axes. Temples were built (e.g. Eridu, Gawra), ancestral in structure and siting to those of Sumerian times. At Al 'Ubaid are the remains of a temple with copper statues and reliefs, and mosaic friezes of the 1st Dynasty of Ur c 2600 BC. The period represents the time when the first villages, and later, the first towns and cities, appeared and many of the characteristics of Sumerian civilization emerged. It expanded greatly and between 4500-3700 BC, it influenced almost the entire Near East, from coasts of Syria to Iranian plateau and the Arabian Gulf. It lasted until the beginning of the Uruk period.
Ubaid: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ubaid period; 'Ubaid culture complex
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A small tell of Ur which has given its name to a culture c 5000-3000 BC in southern Mesopotamia, where it underlies practically every city of Sumer. It later spread to the north, displacing the Halaf culture and becoming the first culture to cover the whole of Mesopotamia. It is distinguished by a well-made buff pottery, frequently overfired to a greenish color, and painted in dark brown or black. In the south, stone was scarce, but there were terra-cotta pounders, sickles, hoes, and axes. Temples were built (e.g. Eridu, Gawra), ancestral in structure and siting to those of Sumerian times. At Al 'Ubaid are the remains of a temple with copper statues and reliefs, and mosaic friezes of the 1st Dynasty of Ur c 2600 BC. The period represents the time when the first villages, and later, the first towns and cities, appeared and many of the characteristics of Sumerian civilization emerged. It expanded greatly and between 4500-3700 BC, it influenced almost the entire Near East, from coasts of Syria to Iranian plateau and the Arabian Gulf. It lasted until the beginning of the Uruk period.
Unetice: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Unetice period; Aunjetitz; Unetician culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Bronze Age culture centered on Bohemia, Bavaria, Germany, Poland, and Moravia, named after a type site cemetery north of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Characteristic metal objects include ingot torcs, lock rings, various pins, flanged axes, riveted daggers, and the halberd. Regional groups include: Nitra, Adlerberg, Straubing , Marschwitz, and Unterwölbling (Austria). In late Unetice times, there is evidence of commercial contact with the Wessex culture of Britain and, via the amber route, perhaps with southeast Europe and the Mycenaeans. The Veterov culture of Moravia and the Mad'arovce culture of Slovakia, which had links with the Mycenaean world, are sometimes considered to be subgroups within the final Unetice tradition. Innovations of the culture include two-piece mold and use of tin to make bronze. The earliest Bronze Age center, Unetician A, consisted of a complex of flat inhumation graves with modest grave goods in copper and bronze. Unetice is an umbrella term for the local groups and is dated to c 1800-1500 BC.
Ur III period: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The third dynasty of Ur according to the Sumerian king lists, a time when Ur controlled much of Mesopotamia and the Zagros highlands. It began with Ur-nammu (2112-2095 BC) and the period is noted for the numerous economic texts from its administrative centers. Ur III collapsed under attack by the Elamites and Amorites.
Urnfield period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Urnfield period; Urnfield; Urn culture, Urnfield complex
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A widespread group of related Bronze Age cultures practicing burial by cremation in pottery urns, at first in central and eastern Europe and later spreading to northern and western Europe. Such funerary urns were buried in a cemetery of urns (urnfields) and the practice dates from c 1300 BC to c 750 BC. Other features of the Urnfield period include copper-mining, sheet bronze metalworking, and fortified settlements. At the start of the Iron Age, inhumation once again became the dominant form of burial in many areas. A small pot with holes in it is often found interred with the urn, which may have been the ritual fire igniter or an incense burner. The Urnfield cultures succeeded the Tumulus culture in central Europe and developed into the Hallstatt Iron Age culture.
Uruk: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: biblical Erech, modern Warka; Uruk period
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: One of the greatest city-states of Sumer, northwest of Ur, which flourished at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. It is 250 km south of Bagdad, Iraq. Pottery dating from around 5000 BC has been found there, but the civilization is traditionally dated to c 3800-3100 BC. Uruk's rulers tried to lead Sumer until Ur became more powerful, but Uruk still remained important as a holy city. It was one of the great Sumerian city-states, developing from the 'Ubaid period. It was the site of numerous innovations, the most important being the invention of writing. It lost importance with the rise of Ur, c 2100 BC, but remained occupied till the Parthian period. Archaeologists have found very important structures and deposits of the 4th millennium BC and the site has given its name to the period that succeeded the Ubaid and preceded the Jemdet Nasr period. Uruk was Mesopotamia's -- and the world's -- first true city. There are two large temple complexes -- the Anu sanctuary and the Eanna sanctuary -- both with several successive temple-structures during the Uruk period, including the White Temple in the Anu sanctuary and the Limestone and Pillar Temples in the Eanna sanctuary. A characteristic form of decoration is clay cones with painted tops pressed into the mud plaster -- known as clay cone mosaic. A ziggurat laid out by Ur-Nammu in the Ur III period (late 3rd millennium BC) is by the Eanna sanctuary. The earliest clay tablets appear in late Uruk levels; they are simple labels and lists with pictographic symbols. Tablets from slightly later levels, of the Jemdet Nasr phase, show further developments towards the cuneiform script of the Early Dynastic period. There was also mass-produced wheelmade pottery, cylinder seals, and sophisticated art. Uruk was the home of the epic hero Gilgamesh, now thought to be a real king of the city's first dynasty.
Vendel Period: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term for a main phase of the Migration Period, the 7th and 8th centuries AD in Scandinavia, the last phase of the Iron Age before the Viking Age. It takes its name from a site in central Sweden with rich burials. Other cemeteries of the Vendel Period are at Valsgarde and Old Uppsala, with burials often in boats with rich treasures.
Villanovan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Villanovan culture; Villanova period
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age people of the Po Valley, Etruria, and parts of Campania, Italy, c 900-700 BC. The culture is defined by artifacts from the type site of Villanova: metalwork in gold and bronze. The craftsmen played a major part in the development of the fibula and the technique of sheet metalwork, especially the situla. The cemeteries were urnfields with decorated biconical urns and bronze objects; subsidiary vessels, fibulae, ornaments, crescentic razors, etc., frequently accompanied the ashes. The pottery was handmade, dark burnished, decorated with meanders of grooved bands. The Villanovans were replaced culturally by the Etruscans in the south in the 8th century, in the north in the 6th century. This period laid the foundations for the Etruscan culture and city-states of the 8th century BC.
Warring States period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Contending States
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of the Zhou/Chou Dynasty, 475-221 BC, the latter part of the Eastern Zhou period, made up of six or seven small feuding Chinese kingdoms. The Warring States period saw the rise of many of the great philosophers of Chinese civilization, including the Confucian thinkers Mencius and Hsün-tzu, and the establishment of many of the governmental structures and cultural patterns that were to characterize China for the next 2,000 years. The Warring States period is distinguished from the preceding age, the Spring and Autumn (Ch'un Ch'iu) period (770-476 BC), when the country was divided into many even smaller states. In 223 BC, Ch'in defeated Ch'u and two years later established the first unified Chinese empire.
Western Zhou [Chou] period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Royal Zhou
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of the Zhou/Chou Dynasty, 1027-771 BC, the earlier part of the Zhou dynasty, starting with the fall of the Shang dynasty. The first Zhou/Chou rulers parceled out their expanding territory among feudal lords. As the feudal states rose in power and independence, so did the central Zhou/Chou itself shrink, to be further weakened by the eastward shift of the capital from sites in the Wei River valley near modern-day Sian to Lo-yang in 771 BC. Thereafter, the Zhou/Chou empire was broken up among rival states.
Woodland period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Woodland tradition
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Stage in eastern North America c 1000 BC-800 AD that is a period in Native American history and culture. It is characterized by hunter-gatherers, elaborate burial mounds, beginning of substantial agriculture (corn, beans, squash), and pottery decorated with cord or fabric impressions. It is a term restricted to the cultures of the Eastern Woodlands (south and east of Maritime Provinces of Canada to Minnesota and south to Louisiana and Texas) and important sites are Adena, Hopewell, and Effigy Mound. From c 700 AD, the southern part of the Woodland territory shows strong influence from the Mississippian culture, but elsewhere the Woodland tradition continued until the historic period.
Yayoi: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Yayoi period
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Protohistoric period of Japan, 300 BC-300 AD, which replaced the Jomon period and precedes the Kofun. It is marked by the strengthening of mainland influences from Korea and China, as shown by the appearance of bronze and, later, iron, wet-rice growing, the potter's wheel, and cist and jar burials. These changes were absorbed into the Jomon tradition, which was only gradually replaced. Local developments include the great decorated bronze bells and Late Yayoi mound-burials foreshadow the mounded tombs of the Kofun. Large quantities of bronzes and glass imported from China. It is generally divided into three parts: Early (300-100 BC), Middle (100 BC-100 AD), and Late (100-300 AD) -- dates based mainly on imported Chinese bronze mirrors, because the radiocarbon dates for Yayoi tend to be erratic. Yayoi pottery is less ornate than Jomon ware, but is made and fired in basically the same way. It also incorporates Mumun pottery (from Korea) techniques and is related to the Haji pottery of the Kofun period. Apart from the pottery, the Yayoi culture is characterized by definite evidence of agriculture and the use of metal tools. Yayoi houses were semi-subterranean or built at ground level. A series of settlements, a large one with several smaller ones, seem to have formed a community, which was often moated.
A Group: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: A Horizon, A-Group
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term created by American archaeologist George Reisner to refer to a semi-nomadic Nubian Neolithic culture of the mid-fourth to early third millennium BC. The term has evolved into a horizon" because there was also a C Group and the term was misleading that there were two separate ethnic groups rather than two phases of Nubian material culture. Traces of the A group which may have evolved from the Abkan culture survive throughout Lower Nubia. An important site is Afyeh near Aswan Sayala and Qustul. There is evidence among the grave goods that the A Group was engaged in regular trade with the Egyptians of the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods. The A Group was eventually replaced by the C Group during the Old Kingdom. The existence of a B Group has now been rejected."
Abada, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A 'Ubaid site in Iraq with important architecture of the 'Ubaid and Uruk periods.
Abbevillian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abbevillean, Chellean, Abbeville
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The name for the period of the earliest handax industries of Europe, taken from Abbeville, the type site near the mouth of the River Somme in northern France. The site is a gravel pit in which crudely chipped oval or pear-shaped handaxes were discovered, probably dating to the Mindel Glaciation. This was one of the key places which showed that man was of great antiquity. Starting in 1836, Boucher de Perthes excavated the pits and the significance of these discoveries was recognized around 1859. These pits became one of the richest sources of Palaeolithic tools in Europe. In 1939, Abbé Breuil proposed the name Abbevillian for both the handax and the industry, which preceded the Acheulian in Europe.
Abu Hureyra, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small tell on the Euphrates River, 120 km east of Aleppo in Syria. The site was excavated in 1972-73 prior to flooding by the Tabqua/Tabqa Dam. Two major phases of occupation were found: Mesolithic or Epi-Palaeolithic (early 9th millennium BC) to a Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Culture in the 6th millennium. There was a long period of abandonment in the 7th millennium and then a final abandonment c 5800 BC. The site depicted a transition from gathering to cultivation, including large quantities of einkorn wheat, and from hunting to herding (sheep and goats, also gazelle and onager). The Neolithic settlement was of enormous size, larger than any other recorded site of this period -- even Çatal Hüyük. In the uppermost levels, a dark burnished pottery appeared.
Abu Sir: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abusir
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient site between Giza and Saqqara where several 5th Dynasty (c. 2494-2345 BC) kings built their pyramids, a sun temple, a number of mastaba tombs, and Late Period (747-332 BC) shaft tombs. The pyramids were poorly constructed; those of King Userkaf and King Neuserre have been excavated.
Abydos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Abdjw
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Anatolian site, which was a pilgrimage center for the worship of the god Osiris and the chosen burial place of the pharaohs of the 1st Dynasty. Located on the east side of the Dardanelles and west bank of the Nile northeast of modern Canakkale, it flourished from the Predynastic period until Christian times (c. 4000 BC-AD 641) and survived until late Byzantine times as the toll station of the Hellespont. The earliest significant remains are the tombs of the Protodynastic and Early Dynastic periods (c. 3100-2686 BC), including that of Seti I of the 19th Dynasty (c. 1300 BC). From the 2nd Dynasty, the royal graves were at Saqqara. It was from Abydos that Xerxes crossed the strait to invade Greece in 480 BC.
aceramic: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Without pottery or not using pottery. This term is applied to periods and societies in which pottery is not used, especially in contrast to other periods of ceramic use and with neighboring ceramic cultures. Aceramic societies may use bark, basketry, gourds, leather, etc. for containers.
Aceramic Neolithic: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The early part of the Neolithic period in Western Asia before the widespread use of pottery (c. 8500-6000 BC) in an economy based on the cultivation of crops or the rearing of animals or both. Aceramic Neolithic groups were in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B), Zagros area (Karim Shahir, Jarmoan), and Anatolia (Hacilar Aceramic Neolithic). Aceramic Neolithic groups are more rare outside Western Asia.
Achaemenids: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Achaemenid dynasty, Achaemenid
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The Persian dynasty, descendants of Achaemenes (c. 700 BC), which ruled from Cyrus the Great to Darius III (c 550-331 BC). Cyrus II (559-530 BC) overthrew the Medes empire to found a Persian empire, conquering Lydia, Babylonia, the Iranian plateau, and Palestine. His son, Cambyses II, added Egypt in 525 BC. The throne then passed to Darius, who set up an efficient administration of an empire then extending from the Nile to the Indus. This empire united for the first time all the peoples of the east -- from Thrace and Egypt to the Aral Sea and the Indus Valley -- and had as its capitals Parsargadae, Susa, and Persepolis. At Marathon in 490 BC, Darius failed to conquer the Greeks, as his son Xerxes failed at Salamis in 480. Their successors, notably Artaxerxes, fought to consolidate a waning empire. The Achaemenids were finally overthrown in 332 BC by Alexander the Great. The period is an important one in Iranian civilization. It was marked by contacts between the classical civilizations of Europe and the east and the appearance and spread of Zoroastrianism, at its time the most advanced religion outside Judaism. The Achaemenids' most famous monuments are the work of Darius: his capital of Persepolis, outstanding for its architecture and monumental reliefs, and his trilingual rock-cut inscription at Behistun for the key it gave to the translation of the cuneiform script. Other surviving Achaemenid monuments include the tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae and the rock-cut tomb of Darius at Naqsh-i Rustam near Persepolis.
Acheulian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Acheulean, Acheulian industry
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: A European culture of the Lower Palaeolithic period named for Saint-Acheul, a town in northern France, the site of numerous stone artifacts from the period. The conventional borderline between Abbevillian and Acheulian is marked by a technological innovation in the working of stone implements, the use of a flaking tool of soft material (wood, bone, antler) in place of a hammerstone. This culture is noted for its hefty multipurpose, pointed (or almond-shaped) hand axes, flat-edged cleaving tools, and other bifacial stone tools with multiple cutting edges. The Acheulian flourished in Africa, western Europe, and southern Asia from over a million years ago until less than 100,000 and is commonly associated with Homo erectus. This progressive tool industry was the first to use regular bifacial flaking. The term Epoque de St Acheul was introduced by Gabriel de Mortillet in 1872 and is still used occasionally, but after 1925 the idea of epochs began to be supplanted by that of cultures and traditions and it is in this sense that the term Acheulian is more often used today. The earliest assemblages are often rather similar to the Oldowan at such sites as Olduvai Gorge. Subsequent hand-ax assemblages are found over most of Africa, southern Asia and western and southern Europe. The earliest appearance of hand axes in Europe is still refereed to by some workers as Abbevillian, denoting a stage when hand axes were still made with crude, irregular devices. The type site, near Amiens in the Somme Valley contained large hand ax assemblages from around the time of the penultimate interglacial and the succeeding glacial period (Riss), perhaps some 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. Acheulian hand axes are still found around the time of the last interglacial period, and hand axes are common in one part of the succeeding Mousterian period (the Mousterian of Acheulian tradition) down to as recently as 40,000 years ago. Acheulian is also used to describe the period when this culture existed. In African terminology, the entire series of hand ax industries is called Acheulian, and the earlier phases of the African Acheulian equate with the Abbevillian of Europe.
acrolith: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Greek statue, of which the head and extremities were of stone or marble and the trunk crafted of wood which was either gilt or draped. The acrolith period was the infancy of Greek plastic art.
Acropole of Susa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southwestern Iran including a large cemetery and platform from Susa's initial occupation, dating to the end of the 5th millennium BC. The site is divided into Acropole 1 and 2; Acropole 1 has provided a sequence of 27 levels up to the Akkadian period. Some levels contain evidence of the development of writing: tablets marked with numbers, tokens in envelopes, and tablets of the Proto-Elamite script.
Addaura: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave in Monte Pellegrino near Palermo, Sicily, with engravings from the Upper Palaeolithic period. The main scene is of human figures and seems to depict an initiation or circumcision. It is attributed to the Romanellian culture of 11,000 years ago.
Adena: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A widespread native American culture of the Early Woodland period in the Ohio Valley (US) and named after the Adena Mounds of Ross County. It is known for its ceremonial and complex burial practices involving the construction of mounds and by a high level of craftwork and pottery. It is dated from as early as c. 1250 BC and flourished between c. 700-200 BC. It is ancestral to the Hopewell culture in that region. It was also remarkable for long-distance trading and the beginnings of agriculture. The mounds (e.g. Grave Creek Mound) are usually conical and they became most common around 500 BC. There was also cremation. Artifacts include birdstones, blocked-end smoking pipes, boatstones, cord-marked pottery, engraved stone tablets, and hammerstones.
Adena point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A widespread Native American culture of the Early Woodland period in the Ohio Valley (US) and named after the Adena Mounds of Ross County. It is known for its ceremonial and complex burial practices involving the construction of mounds and by a high level of craftwork and pottery. It is dated from as early as c. 1250 BC and flourished between c. 700-200 BC. It is ancestral to the Hopewell culture in that region. It was also remarkable for long-distance trading and the beginnings of agriculture. The mounds (e.g. Grave Creek Mound) are usually conical and they became most common around 500 BC. There was also cremation. Artifacts include birdstones, blocked-end smoking pipes, boatstones, cord-marked pottery, engraved stone tablets, and hammerstones. Artifacts distinctive of Adena include a tubular pipe style, mica cutouts, copper bracelets and cutouts, incised tablets, stemmed projectile points, oval bifaces, concave and reel-shaped gorgets, and thick ceramic vessels decorated with incised geometric designs.
Adulis: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A seaport on the Red Sea coast of Ethiopia, near modern Massawa. It was the principal port of Axum on an important trade route. It may have been established in Ptolemaic times during the Pre-Axumite period, though excavations have yielded material belonging to the 3rd century AD or later.
Aeginetan marbles: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Archaic Greek sculpture discovered in the temple of Pallas-Athene at Aegina, an island in the Saronic group of Greece. They are in the Glyptothek at Munich, Germany. Aegina's period of glory was the 5th century BC, which left a legacy of sculpture.
agriculture: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The cultivation of domesticated crops. The invention of agriculture occurred in the Near East during the Neolithic period (8500-4300 BCE).
Aguada: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture of northwestern Argentina during the period 700-1000 AD, located on the western slopes of the Andes, and noted for the fine quality of its arts. Decorated copper and bronze plaques and polychrome yellow and black pottery with designs of cats, dragons, humans, birds, warriors, weaponry, and trophy heads are characteristic and reflect a possible influence from Tiahuanaco. Decapitated burials are a further indication that warfare was a dominant preoccupation of Aguada. Its sudden disappearance from the archaeological record in c 1000 AD was probably the result of invasion from the east.
Ahar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Rajasthan, western India, belonging to the Chalcolithic Banas culture and dated c. 2500-1500 BC. The people cultivated cereal crop, hunted deer, used copper and a variety of pottery, including Black and Red Ware. A second period of occupation later in the 1st millennium BC used Northern Black Polished Ware.
Ahhotep I (c. 1590-1530 BC): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: New Kingdom queen who played an important part in the wars of liberation leading to indigenous Egyptian rule. She was involved in the transition from the Second Intermediate Period to the New Kingdom, when the Hyksos rulers were expelled from Lower Egypt. She was the daughter of 17th Dynasty ruler Senakhtenra Taa I, the wife of Seqenenra Taa II, and mother of Ahmose I (and maybe of Kamose).
Ahrensburgian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Epipalaeolithic culture of the Late Glacial Period in northern Germany and the Low Countries, c. 8850-8300 BC. The small tanged points, pine arrow shafts, abundant reindeer bones, barbed harpoons, and antler adzes of Stellmoor characterize the culture.
Ai Bunar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Aibunar
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site with three copper mines, located near Stara Zagora in central Bulgaria. The open-cast mining of malachite ore beds dates to the 4th millennium BC (Karanovo VI period) and was later used in the Late Bronze Age. Quantities of this ore have been discovered in settlements in Moldavia and the Ukraine (Cucuteni-Tripolye culture).
Ain Mallaha: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Eynan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large village of the early Natufian period near Lake Huleh in Upper Jordan. The three phases contain 50 large circular houses and open areas with storage pits. The well-built houses suggest a permanent occupation. The economy was probably based on the hunting and herding of gazelle and other large animals, fishing, and harvesting cereals. Many of the houses had paved stone floors and a central stone-lined hearth.
Ainu: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The native people of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands, Japan, who are physically different from their Mongoloid neighbors. They once lived by hunting, trapping, and fishing and also grew buckwheat and numbered about 17,000 in the 1940s. Ainu appear to be descendants of the early Caucasoid peoples who were once spread over northern Asia. They did not undergo the sociocultural changes of the Yayoi and Kofun periods, but remained Epi-Jomon until about the end of the 8th century; it then was transformed into the Satsumon culture. The Ainu were pushed northward over the centuries by the Japanese. Intermarriage and cultural assimilation have made the traditional Ainu almost extinct. Their most important ritual, the Bear Ceremonial, find parallels in Okhutsk ceremonialism.
Ajdabiya: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ajdabiyah, Agedabia
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town in northeastern Libya near the Gulf of Sidra that was the site of Roman and Byzantine colonization and a caravan junction from Egypt to the Maghreb and a trans-Saharan route from the Sudan during the early Middle Ages. There are ruins from the earlier colonization and two important monuments from the period 912-1051 -- an early congregational mosque and a qasr (fort).
Aker: CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: An earth god of the Early Dynastic period, most often represented as a form of double-sphinx of two lions back to back. Aker's symbolism was closely associated with the junction of the eastern and western horizons in the underworld.
Akhmim: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Ipu, Khent-Mim
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the east bank of the Nile opposite modern Sohag, that was the capital of the ninth nome of Upper Egypt during the Pharaonic period, c. 3100-332 BC. The earliest surviving remains are Old and Middle Kingdom rock-cut tombs. The city originally included a number of temples dedicated to Min, but few stone buildings have survived because of the plundering. Colossal statues of Rameses II and Meritamun have been excavated.
Akjoujt: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Mauritania that appears to have been an early copperworking center in Africa, from c. 5th century BC or earlier. It is one of the few Saharan or sub-Saharan areas where there may have been a Copper Age preceding the Iron Age. Arrowheads, spearheads, axes, pins, and some decorative items of copper are attributed to this period.
alabaster: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Egyptian alabaster
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A term used by Egyptologists for a type of white, semi-transparent or translucent, stone used in statuary, vases, sarcophagi, and architecture. It is a form of limestone (calcium carbonate), sometimes described as travertine. It was used increasingly from the Early Dynastic period for funerary vessels as well as statuary and altars. Alabaster is found in Middle Egypt, a main source being Hatnub, southeast of el-Amarna. The sarcophagi of Seti I (British Museum) is a fine example. An alabaster (also alabastron or alabastrum) is also the name of a small vase or jar for precious perfumes or oils made of this material. It was often globular with a narrow mouth and often without handles.
Aleppo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arabic Halab, Turkish Halep
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in northern Syria which stands on the site of an ancient, as yet unexcavated, city. On the route between the Euphrates and Orontes, the ancient site is mentioned in texts from the 2nd millennium onwards as the capital of the Amorite kingdom of Yamkhad in the 18th century BC. It subsequently came under Hittite, Egyptian, Mitannian, and again Hittite rule during the 17th-14th centuries. It was known to the Hittites as Halpa. The city was conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC and then controlled by the Achaemenian Persians from the 6th-4th centuries BC before the Seleucids took it over, rebuilt it, and renamed it Beroea. Aleppo was very important during the Hellenistic period for its position along trade routes. The city became part of the Roman province of Syria in the 1st century BC. Conquered by the Arabs in 637, it reverted to its old name of Halab.
Ali Kosh: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early farming site near Deh Luran in southwestern Iran, occupied c 7500-5600 BC. It was the first excavated farming site where significant quantities of plant remains were collected using the flotation technique, a landmark in the study of farming origins. The earliest phase, named Bus Mordeh and dated c 7500-6750 BC is characterized by simple mud-brick buildings and a combination of wild and domesticated foods, some herding, and the catching of fish. The succeeding phase, Ali Kosh and dated c 6770-6000 BC had similar plants and animals, hunting and fishing, but a decline in wild plant foods which points to more successful cereal cultivation. The buildings were much more substantial in this period. The final phase, Muhammed Jaffar and dated c 6000-5600, saw the introduction of pottery and ground stone. The evidence shows some strain of over-exploitation and by the mid-6th millennium BC, the area was abandoned. The site illustrates the transition from food gathering to food production and the improvement of house-building quality.
Alishar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Alisar, Alisar Huyuk
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell southeast of Boghazköy in central Turkey which yielded many occupation levels from Chalcolithic (late 4th millennium) to Phrygian (1st millennium BC). The lowest stratum had eight Chalcolithic levels. The Early Bronze Age levels are characterized by painted pottery with a buff or light red burnish and some geometric patterns in dark brown or buff. There was some trade with Assyria early in the 3rd millennium BC. A karum was built and some Cappadocian tablets recovered. There may have been a hiatus in occupation in the Hittite period (later 2nd millennium).
Allerød oscillation: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Allerod interstadial
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: An interstadial (transient) period of glacial retreat at the close of the Würm Glacial Stage in Europe, dated to c 12,000-11,000 years ago. This temporary increase in warmth allowed forests to establish themselves for a time in the ice-free zones. Radiocarbon dates show similar conditions prevailed in North America at about the same time. It was followed by another cold, glacial advance.
Altin-Depe: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Altin-depe
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large Chalcolithic and Bronze Age site in southern Turkmenistan which is similar to Namazga-Depe. The urban phase of the early 2nd millennium BC has a large artisans' quarter where there is evidence for specialized pottery production. The residential quarter has rich grave goods, including jewelry of precious and semi-precious stones and metals and imported materials. There is a complex of monumental structures which are similar to the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, with three main periods of construction. The settlement declined early in the 2nd millennium BC and was abandoned mid-millennium.
Altithermal: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Climatic Optimum, Thermal Maximum, Long Drought; altithermal; Great Drought; Holocene climatic optimum.
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A warm, dry postglacial period in the western United States approximately 5600-2500 BC. Coined by Ernst Antev in 1948, the term describes a time during which temperatures were warmer than at present. Other terms, like Long drought, are used.
Altmühlian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late Middle Palaeolithic industry of central Europe dating to the middle of the last glacial period. It is characterized by Blattspitzen, sidescrapers, and retouched blades.
Alto Salaverry: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Preceramic site on the north coast of Peru with the first sunken circular structure, which eventually was used in other ceremonial sites of the Initial Period.
Altun Ha: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Classic Maya site in Belize, about 35 mi (56 km) north of Belize City which dates to the Middle Pre-Classic Period. It is known for caches of obsidian and jade. The land was poor for agriculture, but marine resources were exploited and the small center was quite wealthy. There is evidence of long-distance contact with Teotihuacan before it was abandoned, like other Maya ceremonial centers, c 900 AD.
Amarna, Tell el-: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Akhetaten; El-Amarna; Tall al-Amarna; el-Amarna
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the ruins and tombs of the city of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhetaton in Upper Egypt, 44 mi (71 km) north of modern Asyut and 280 km south of Cairo. Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) built the city in about 1348 BC as his capital and the center of his reformed religion and worship of Aten. The city consisted of a group of palaces, temples, and residential quarters (and rock-cut tombs) inhabited only about 25-30 years. It was abandoned less than four years after Akhenaten's death and the capital returned to Thebes. Tell el-Amarna's remains have preserved the record of this short, fascinating period of history during which a correspondence in cuneiform between the Egyptian pharaoh, kings of the Hittites and of the Mitanni, and governors of Egyptian possessions in western Asia took place. There is Mycenaean pottery, linking the site to the Aegean and statuary which differed from the traditional art of pharaonic Egypt. The art of this brief monotheistic period was realistic and unrestrained, in contrast with the stereotyped art styles of other periods in ancient Egypt. It is one of the best-preserved examples of an Egyptian settlement of the New Kingdom.
Ambrona: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Lower Palaeolithic site in Soria, central Spain, first discovered before World War II. Ambrona probably dates 300,000-400,000 years ago, from the end of the Mindel glacial period. Its occupants hunted elephants, deer, and bovines though the horse was the most common animal in the area. There are stone hand axes, scrapers, and cleavers of the Acheulian type and similar to some African sites were made from chalcedony, quartzite, quartz, and limestone. Points were fashioned from young elephant tusks. Pieces of charcoal show that fire was used.
amino acid dating: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: amino-acid dating; aminostratigraphy; amino-acid racemization, amino acid racemization
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of absolute (chronometric) dating which is hoped to fill the gap between radiocarbon dates and potassium-argon dates. It is used for human and animal bone and other organic material. Specific changes in its amino acid structure (racemization or epimerization) which occur at a slow, relatively uniform rate, are measured after the organism's death. The basis for the technique is the fact that almost all amino acids change from optically active to optically passive compounds (racemize) over a period of time. Aspartic acid is the compound most often used because it has a half-life of 15,000-20,000 years and allows dates from 5,000-100,000 years to be calculated. However, racemization is very much affected by environmental factors such as temperature change. If there has been significant change in the temperature during the time in which the object is buried, the result is flawed. Other problems of contamination have occurred, so the technique is not fully established. It is fairly reliable for deep-sea sediments as the temperature is generally more stable.
amphitheatre: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: amphitheater
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A large-scale Roman arena open to the elements and surrounded by tiers of seats. They were constructed for exhibiting gladiatorial and other public spectacles (military displays, combats, and wild beast fights) to the populace. The earliest were oval and built of wood, later changing to stone construction. Rome's Colosseum has tiered galleries 2-3 stories in height and has provision for covering the arena with shades to protect against rain or sun. Roofing of so wide an expanse was beyond Roman technology. The arena of the Colosseum had a false timber floor, below which there was a labyrinth of service corridors. The animal cages were situated here, linked with pre-tensioned lifts and automatic trapdoors so that participants and animals could be sent up to the floor of the arena with speed and precision. Somehow Roman engineers staged the grand opening by flooding the arena for a full-scale sea battle. Amphitheatres accommodated a great number of spectators (possibly more than 50,000 at the Colosseum). The Romans derived their ideas from the classic Greek theater and stadium and the model was widely copied throughout the Roman empire. It could be erected on any terrain and set inside an urban center. An early example of the Republican period is at Pompeii the Colosseum is of the Imperial model. The fortress of Caerlon and the towns of Caerwent, Cirencester, Colchester, Dorchester, Richborough, and Wroxeter are some British places which had amphitheatres.
Amratian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Naqadah I
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Egyptian predynastic culture, centered in Upper Egypt and named for the site El Amrah (or al-'Amirah; c 4500-4000 BC) near Abydos. Numerous sites, dating to c 3600 BC, have been excavated. They reveal an animal husbandry and agricultural lifeway similar to the preceding Badarian culture. There are large cemeteries, like that at Naqada, which imply that the settlements were permanent and large. Many of the dead were buried crouched with rich grave goods. Flint was quarried for the variety of finely worked daggers, points, and tools. Copper came into use for beads, harpoons, and pins. There was trading with Ethiopia, the Red Sea, and Syria based on the finds. Several pottery wares, in a range of shapes, were made: black-topped red ware from the Badarian period onward and white cross-lined (red ware painted in white) added.
Amri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Indus Valley in Pakistan, probably dating to the early 3rd millennium. It was the first site to be recognized as belonging to the Early Harappan Period when excavated by Majumdar in 1929. Its name has been given to a style of hand- and wheel-made painted pottery found in its Chalcolithic levels and on tells over much of Sind and up into the hills of Baluchistan. These tall globular beakers of fine buff ware are painted with geometric designs in black between red horizontal bands. Chert and some copper were used for tools and the architecture was in mud-brick. Fractional burial was the practice for the dead. Periods I and II represent the pre-Harappan settlement of agricultural farmers, who kept cattle, sheep, goat and donkey, but also hunted (or herded) gazelle. In the later part of Period II Harappan ceramics appear alongside Amri wares; Period III represents a full mature Harappan occupation. The culture was gradually succeeded by that of the Indus civilization. The uppermost levels contained Jhukar and Jhangar material.
Amuq: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A swampy plain in northern Syria east of Antioch (Antakya) at the foot of the Amanus mountains and beside the Orontes River at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea. Its important sites Tayanat (Neolithic-Chalcolithic), Atchana (Copper Age to Hittite), and Antioch (Hellenistic and Roman). The plain is rich in tell settlements of the prehistoric and later periods. The basic prehistoric sequence for the area has phases designated by letters, as 'Amuq A represents the Early Neolithic.
Amuq: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A swampy plain in northern Syria east of Antioch (Antakya) at the foot of the Amanus mountains and beside the Orontes River at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea. Its important sites Tayanat (Neolithic-Chalcolithic), Atchana (Copper Age to Hittite), and Antioch (Hellenistic and Roman). The plain is rich in tell settlements of the prehistoric and later periods. The basic prehistoric sequence for the area has phases designated by letters, as 'Amuq A represents the Early Neolithic.
Anasazi: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A major cultural tradition of canyon dwellers found in southwestern United States between 100-1600 AD -- mainly in the four corners area of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, southeastern Utah, and southwestern Colorado. These Native Americans began settlements with the cultivation of maize. Pottery was unknown at the beginning, but basketry was well developed, hence the name Basket Maker" is given to these early stages. By the sixth century there were large villages of pit houses with farming and pottery and it evolved into the full Anasazi tradition. The first pueblos and kivas were constructed and fine painted pottery made. The next few centuries (the Pueblo I-III periods) were a time of expansion during which some of the most famous towns were founded (Chaco Canyon) and fine polychrome wares produced. At this time the Mogollon people to the south adopted the Anasazi way of life and their Hohokam neighbors were also influenced perhaps suggesting that the Anasazi actually migrated to these areas. In such an arid environment farming was always vulnerable to fluctuations in climate and rainfall and these factors caused considerable population movement and relocation of settlements during 11th-13th centuries with the virtual abandonment of Chaco Canyon in 1150 and the plateau heartland by 1300. From 1300 until the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century the Anasazi culture and population dwindled and the homeland in northern Arizona was abandoned. Then with the encroachment of nomadic Apache and Navajo tribes and with the arrival of Europeans from the south and east Anasazi territory decreased further. However some pueblos have continued to be occupied until the present day. The generally accepted chronological framework of three Basketmaker and five Pueblo stages was first proposed at the 1927 Pecos Conference. Although exact links are uncertain it is clear that modern Pueblo Indian people are descended from Anasazi ancestors. The name Anasazi is derived from a Navajo word meaning "enemy ancestors" or "early ancestors" or "old people"."
anathermal: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period of cool climate in the area of North America that occurred from about 7000-5000 BC. This was Ernst Antev's name for the first of the Neothermal periods and it is thought to have started off cool before becoming somewhat warmer.
Andean chronology: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The chronological systems of the Central Andes area with two main stages, Preceramic and Ceramic. The Ceramic is broken down into: Initial Period, 1900-1200 BC, Early Horizon 1200-300 BC, Early Intermediate Period 300 BC-700 AD, Middle Horizon 700-100, Late Intermediate Period 1100-1438/1478, and Late Horizon 1438-1532. These horizon periods are times of widespread unity in cultural traits. Intermediate periods are times of cultural diversification.
Andrae, Walter (1875-1956): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A German scholar and archaeologist who excavated the major Mesopotamian city of Assur, capital of Assyria, between 1903-1914. His high-quality excavations exposed major buildings, including a series of temples of the Early Dynastic Period that pre-dated the Temple of Ishtar.
Angkor Wat: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A huge stone stepped pyramid, the best-known monument of Angkor (Cambodia), the largest religious structure in the world. The three-storied construction is surrounded by a moat and surmounted by five vast towers which symbolized the five peaks of Mount Meru. It was built by Suryavarman II (1113-1150 AD) over a 25-year period as his own mausoleum (temple-mountain). The name in Khmer means the capital (which has become a Buddhist) monastery". Angkor Wat is considered to be the highest expression of Khmer classic architecture and sculpture-relief."
Anglian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Anglian-Elsterian
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Quaternary glacial deposits found in East Anglia, England. Other possibly related and isolated patches exist elsewhere in Britain, but they are older than the extreme range of radiocarbon dating and palaeomagnetism shows them to be younger than 700,000 bp. This period is sometimes equates with the Elster glacial maximum and dated to c 300,000-400,000 years ago. During the Anglian-Elsterian glaciation in Europe a large ice-dammed lake formed in the North Sea, and large overflows from it initiated the cutting of the Dover Straits. In East Anglia, the deposits are stratified below Hoxnian and above Cromerian interglacial deposits and Acheulian and Clactonian artifacts are found in the sediments. Most of the evidence of human activity in Britain and Europe is later than this time. Anglian is more often used to describe the group of deposits or the one glaciation (antepenultimate) of that time.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A chronological account of events in Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, a compilation of seven surviving annals that is the primary source of the early history of England. Believed to have been started around 870, during the reign of King Alfred (871-899), it was mostly finished by 891 though further accounts were added until 1154. The annals were probably written in the monasteries of Abingdon, Canterbury, Peterborough, Winchester, and Worcester. They include vivid accounts of the Viking raids, Alfred's reign, and the period of anarchy under Stephen. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also included the Venerable Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum" genealogies regnal and episcopal lists some northern annals and some sets of earlier West Saxon annals. The compiler also had access to a set of late 9th-century Frankish annals. The completeness and quality of the entries vary for different periods; the Chronicle has sparse coverage of the mid-10th century and the reign of Canute for example but is an excellent authority for the reign of Aethelred the Unready and from the reign of Edward the Confessor until the annal ends in 1154. The Chronicle survived in seven manuscripts (one of these being destroyed in the 18th century) and a fragment which are generally known by letters of the alphabet. The oldest the A version is written in one hand up till 891 and then continued in various hands. The B version and the C version are copies made at Abingdon from a lost archetype. B ends at 977 whereas C which is an 11th-century copy ends mutilated in 1066. The D version and the E version share many features. D which was written up until 1079 probably remained in the north whereas the archetype of E was taken south and continued at St. Augustine's Canterbury and was used by the scribe of manuscript F. The extant manuscript E is a copy made at Peterborough written in one stretch until 1121. It is the version that was continued longest. The F version is an abridgment in both Old English and Latin made in the late 11th or early 12th century based on the archetype of E but with some entries from A and it extends to 1058. The fragment H deals with 1113-14 and is independent of E."
Anglo-Saxons: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The name of the combined cultures, the Angles and the Saxons, who left their North Sea coastal homelands in the 5th century AD and moved to eastern England after the breakdown of Roman Rule. The name derives from two specific groups --- the Angles of Jutland and the Saxons from northern Germany. Some other Germanic peoples took part in the migrations, such as the Jutes and the Frisians, and they are sometimes included under this name. The language, culture, and settlement pattern of medieval and later England can be traced directly to the Anglo-Saxons. The movement to the area probably began in the 4th century when barbarian Foederati went to serve in the Roman army in Britain. The main immigration began in the middle of the 5th century. Bede, writing in the early 8th century, gives the only reliable historical record for this period, though incidental information can be found in the Old English literature, particularly the poem of Beowulf. The English kingdoms took shape by the late 6th century. Archaeologically, there are three periods: the Early or Pagan Saxon period went until the general acceptance of Christianity in the mid-7th century; the Middle Saxon period until the 9th century, and the Late Saxon period which went up till the Norman invasion of 1066. The earliest period's remains are mainly burial deposits, often cremation in urns or by inhumation in cemeteries of trench graves or under barrows. Grave goods often include knives, sword or spear, shield boss, and brooches, buckles, beads, girdle-hangers, and pottery -- depending on the gender. Most archaeological evidence comes from the cemeteries, including the exceptional ship burial at Sutton Hoo. Churches were built and in the Middle and Late Saxon periods, including Bradford-Upon-Avon and Deerhurst. Important monuments of the Middle and Late Saxon periods are the royal palaces at Yeavering and Cheddar. The Late Saxon period, after the Viking invasions, saw the growth of the first towns in Britain since the Roman period, following the establishment of Burhs in response to the Scandinavian threat. There was wide-ranging trade, developed coinage, and improved pottery manufacture and metal-working. The separate British kingdoms (most important: Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex) eventually became a unified England with a capital at Winchester in Wessex. The Anglo-Saxons were responsible for the introduction of the English language and for the establishment of the settlement patterns of medieval England.
Animal Style: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A term describing a type of gold production whose themes were animals and which arose from the Scythians, a seminomadic people from the Eurasian steppes who moved from southern Russia into the territory between the Don and the Danube and then into Mesopotamia. During the 5th-4th centuries BC, this style appeared on shaped, pierced plaques made of gold and silver, which showed running or fighting animals (reindeer, lions, tigers, horses) alone or in pairs facing each other. The animal-style had a strong influence in western Asia during the 7th century BC. Ornaments such as necklaces, bracelets, pectorals, diadems, and earrings making up the Ziwiye treasure (found in Iran near the border of Azerbaijan) show evidence of highly expressive animal forms. This Central Asian Scythian-Iranian style passed by way of Phoenician trading in the 8th century BC into the Mediterranean and into Western jewelry. The most popular themes are antlered stags, ibexes, felines, birds of prey and, above all, the animal-combat motif, which shows a predator, usually bird or feline, attacking a herbivore. The joining of different animals and the use of tiny animal figures to decorate the body of an animal are also characteristic. Animal bodies were also contorted -- animals curved into circles and quadrupeds with hindquarters inverted. The term is shorthand for this complex of motifs and treatments, which for long periods represented the art of the vast steppe zone of Europe and Asia. The transformations they underwent in the course of their long history on the steppes often leave the sources and affiliations of particular versions obscure.
Anse au Meadow, L': CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland that is the only known Viking settlement in the New World. The Norse explorers were the first Europeans to reach what is now Canadian explorers, c 1000 AD, as is recorded in the Icelandic sagas and recently confirmed by the archaeological discovery of the site at L' Anse-aux-Meadows. Excavations revealed traces of turf-walled houses similar to those at Viking sites in Greenland and Iceland. Also found was a spindle whorl, iron nails, and a smithy with pieces of bog-iron and several pounds of slag -- all of Norse origin. Radiocarbon dates range from AD 700-1080 with a concentration around 1000, which is the period when, according to the sagas, Norsemen led by Leif Eriksson sailed west from Greenland and explored the coast of America, which they named Vinland.
Anubis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Inpw, Anpu
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: The Egyptian god of the dead, in the form of a wild-dog or jackal-headed man. Anubis guarded the tombs and the underworld and presided over mummification and embalming. In the Early Dynastic period and the Old Kingdom, he enjoyed a dominant position but was later overshadowed by Osiris.
Anyang: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: An-yang, Yinxu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in the Honan province of China that was the last capital of the Shang (Yin) Dynasty, occupied in the 12th and 11th centuries BC. It was founded c 14 BC and overthrown by the Chou in 1027 BC and was the seat of 12 kings who ruled for 273 years, a time referred to as the historical Anyang period. Anyang is one of the most extensively excavated sites, beginning in 1928. The buildings had rammed earth floors and many sacrifices of men and animals and chariot burials were found under them. Deep storage pits held oracle bones with inscriptions in an archaic form of Chinese, but the most important finds came from the cemeteries, which included royal tombs. At least as early as the Song dynasty (960--1279), Anyang was known as a source of bronze ritual vessels. Very large cruciform shaft tombs were found near the village of Houjiazhuang. There were eight large tombs in the western part of the Xibeigang cemetery and five more in the east. Excavation has shown that rows of satellite burials in the eastern section were not laid down at the time of the royal entombments but instead were later sacrifices offered to the tombs' occupants; these burials correspond with the oracle texts descriptions of victims sacrificed, sometimes by the hundreds, to the reigning king's ancestors. The only intact royal tomb yet discovered is that of Fu Hao, which is not in the Xibeigang cemetery but across the river at Xiatoun. Later excavations have established that Anyang was heir to the flourishing civilization of the Erligang Phase.
Anza: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Anzabegovo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large settlement of the First Neolithic and Early Vinca periods of Macedonia near the Bregnalnica River. Excavations have revealed a four-phase occupation c 5300-4200 BC. There was cultivation of emmer and wheat as well as some herding. The architecture was mud brick walls to wattle-and-daub timber-framed houses. The artifacts are similar to those found in northern Greece and the Anatolian Late Neolithic.
Apennine culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Apennine Bronze Age
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The Bronze Age culture of the Italian peninsula, lasting from c 2000-800 BC. The culture's pottery was distinctively dark and highly burnished, and decorated with incised and punctuated bands filled with white inlay. The handles, often single, were elaborate and included crested, horned, and tongue types. The people seemed to depend on pastoral economy and stock breeding in the mountains which give the culture its name. Trade and a more mixed economy has evidence at some sites -- Ariano, Liparis, Luni, Narce, and Taranto -- and the culture had some influence from the Balkans. Some inhumation cemeteries are known, but burials are rare. Bronze tools, though in use, are rarely found until very late in the period.
Apepi: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Apopis, Apophis
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: An evil serpent- or snake-god, whose name was adopted by at least one Hyksos pharaoh (Apopis I, c 1585-1542 BC) who ruled a large area of Egypt in the Second Intermediate Period. The deity symbolized the forces of chaos and evil. Apophis is represented on funerary papyri and on the walls of royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings as the eternal enemy of the sun god Ra.
Aphrodisias: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Pre-Classical and Classical city on the Meander River of southwest Turkey with extant remains of the Roman period, including an agora, odeum, temple of Aphrodite, and baths. There also was an abundance of free-standing statues. The Pre-Classical mounds show Late Neolithic occupation and a sequence of Late Chalcolithic to Late Bronze Age artifacts.
Apis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Egyptian Hap, Hep, Hapi
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: In ancient Egypt, the sacred bull worshipped at Memphis. Revered at least as early as the 1st Dynasty (c 2925-2775 BC) and sacred to Osiris, Apis came to prominence during the Greco-Roman period. Apis was probably at first a fertility god concerned with grain and herds. It served as the ba (physical manifestation) of the god Ptah and was also associated with Sokaris.
Aqab, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric site of Syria with an unbroken sequence from the Early Halaf to the 'Ubaid period.
Aqrab, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site on the Diyala River east of Baghdad, Iraq. There was a flourishing city in the 3rd millennium BC and excavations revealed a temple of the Early Dynastic period. The temple was dedicated to Shara, patron god of the city of Umma.
Aqrab, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site on the Diyala River east of Baghdad, Iraq. There was a flourishing city in the 3rd millennium BC and excavations revealed a temple of the Early Dynastic period. The temple was dedicated to Shara, patron god of the city of Umma.
Arad: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in southern Israel west of the Dead Sea named for Biblical Arad and having ruins visible at Tel 'Arad, just a few miles northeast. First excavated in 1962, 'Arad has three separate phases of occupation. The first settlement was in the Chalcolithic period with a walled city at the beginning of the 3d millennium BC, which was destroyed by c 2700 BC. Imported Egyptian pottery was found in that phase. A resettlement occurred in the Early Bronze I and II phases and a succession of walled citadels and a temple have been found as well as ostraca (inscribed pottery). The last period of occupation was confined to a citadel on the highest part of the earlier town and it was occupied from the 12th-11th centuries BC. It served as a southern frontier post of the kingdom of Judah. There was a sanctuary for the worship of Yahweh. There were also citadels on this site in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The Book of Numbers (21:1-3) tells how the Canaanite king of 'Arad fought the Israelites during the exodus from Egypt, but his cities were utterly destroyed" by Israel's armies. The city's name appears on the Temple of Amon al-Karnak Egypt in the inscription of Pharaoh Sheshonk I first ruler of the 22nd Dynasty (reigned c 945-924 BC)."
Aramaean: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (fr Greek Aramaios, Syria") adj. Aramaic"
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A branch of the confederacy of Semite tribes who moved out of the Syrian desert and who conquered the Canaanites and established themselves in their own series city-states in c 16-12 BC. The foremost of these states was Aram of Damascus, a large region of northern Syria, which was occupied between the 11th-8th centuries BC, and also Bit-Adini, Aram Naharaim, and Sam'al (Sinjerli). In the same period some of these tribes seized large tracts of Mesopotamia. By the 9th century BC, the whole area from Babylon to the Mediterranean coast was occupied by the Aramaean tribes known collectively as Kaldu (also Kashdu), the biblical Chaldeans. Assyria, nearly encircled, attacked the armies of the Aramaeans and one by one the states collapsed under the domination of Assyria in the succeeding centuries. The destruction of Hamath by Sargon II of Assyria in 720 marked the end of the Aramaean kingdoms of the west. Those Aramaeans along the lower Tigris River remained independent somewhat longer and in 626 BC, a Chaldean general (Nabopolassar) proclaimed himself king of Babylon and joined with the Medes and Scythians to overthrow Assyria. Thereon in the Chaldean empire, the Chaldeans, Aramaeans, and Babylonians became one group. Their North Semitic language, Aramaic, became the international language of the Near East by the 8th century BC, replacing Akkadian. Aramaic was written in the Phoenician script and was the diplomatic and vernacular speech of the Holy Land during the time of Christ. It was replaced by Arabic after the Arab Conquest, but is still spoken in some remote villages of Syria. In the Old Testament the Aramaeans are represented as being related to the Hebrews and living in northern Syria around Harran from about the 16th century BC. Few specifically Aramaic objects have been uncovered by archaeologists.
archaeology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: archeology (from archaia"
CATEGORY: and "logos"
DEFINITION: science knowledge or theory)" branch The scientific study and reconstruction of the human past through the systematic recovery of the physical remains of man's life and cultures. Artifacts, structures, settlements, materials, and features of prehistoric or ancient peoples are surveyed and / or excavated to uncover history in times before written records. Archaeology also supplements the study of recorded history. From the end of the 18th century onwards, archaeology has come to mean the branch of learning which studies the material remains of man's past. Its scope is, therefore, enormous, ranging from the first stone tools made and fashioned by man over 3 million years ago in Africa, to the garbage thrown into our trash cans and taken to city dumps and incinerators yesterday. The objectives of archaeology are to construct cultural history by ordering and describing the events of the past, study cultural process to explain the meaning of those events and what underlies and conditions human behavior, and reconstruct past lifeways. Among the specialties in the field are: archaeobiology, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, and social archaeology. Modern archaeology, often considered a subdiscipline of anthropology, has become increasingly scientific and relies on a wide variety of experts such as biologists, geologists, physicists, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians. The methods appropriate to different periods vary, leading to specialized branches of the subject, e.g. classical, medieval, industrial, etc., archaeology.
Arcy-sur-Cure: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of caves southeast of Paris with Upper Palaeolithic art, including the Grotte du Cheval, Grotte del Hyene, and Grotte du Renne are archaeologically the most important. The early occupation levels are of the Riss period with Mousterian (with Neanderthal remains), Chatel-Perronian, Aurignacian, later Perigordian levels.
area excavation: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: extensive excavation, open excavation, open-area excavation
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of excavation in which the full horizontal extent of a site is cleared and large areas are open while preserving a stratigraphic record in the balks between large squares. A gradual vertical probe may then take place. This method is often used to uncover houses and prehistoric settlement patterns. Area excavation involves the opening up of large horizontal areas for excavation, used especially where single period deposits lie close to the surface. It is the excavation of as large an area as possible without the intervention of balks and a grid system. This technique allows the recognition of much slighter traces of ancient structures than other methods. On multi-period sites, however, it calls for much more meticulous recording since the stratigraphy is revealed one layer at a time.
Arene Candide: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site at Finale Ligure on the Italian Riviera whose excavation revealed a stratigraphy extending from the Upper Palaeolithic through Epi-Palaeolithic, to Early, Middle, and Late Neolithic, as well as poor levels from the Bronze and Iron Ages up to the Roman period. There were some rich burials in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th levels. The 1940s excavations by Bernabò Brea helped him make important interpretations of the Neolithic period in the Mediterranean.
Argissa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Neolithic site in Thessaly, northern Greece, which has given much information on the early phases of the Greek Aceramic Neolithic period. In the Argissa Magula near Larissa, there have been early prepottery Neolithic finds of probably the 6th millennium BC. Timber-framed huts consisted of shallow mud-walled pits that were likely roofed with branches. Obsidian was already being traded and flint tools were made. The earliest known domesticated cattle date from about 6000 BC at Argissa (and Nea Nikomedeia) in Greece, in association with cultivated einkorn, emmer wheat, and barley, millet, lentils. Sheep, goats, and pigs were also cultivate and kept. This site (along with Knossos) is also responsible for the earliest evidence of agriculture, soon after 7000 BC. The site was occupied throughout the Neolithic and well into the Bronze Age.
Arikamedu: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the Madras coast of southern India near Pondicherry excavated by Mortimer Wheeler. It was an important trading post of the Romans after the mid-first century BC, though black-and-red ware found there began well before the period of Roman contact. A town with warehouses in an industrial quarter was built. Black-and-red Iron Age wares associated with Arretine ware of the 1st century AD, Mediterranean amphorae, and imperial Roman coins were found by Wheeler. Other excavations have found Roman pottery, beads, intaglios, lamps, and glass which indicate continuous occupation. Graffiti on pottery indicates the presence of Indian traders.
Armorican axe: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Rather plain and shoddily made type of socketed bronze axe produced in the period 600-650 BC at the very end of the Bronze Age of northern France (Hallstatt II). Mostly found in large hoards, in which few examples appear to have been finished or used. This has led to the suggestion that they were somehow connected with emergency trade in metal rather than finished products.
Arpachiyah: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arpachiyah, Tell
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in Iraq near Mosul on the Tigris inhabited in the Halaf and Ubaid periods (mid-6th to early 4th millennium BC). The Halaf settlements yielded a long pottery sequence and circular buildings with some rectangular antechambers on cobbled streets. The function of these buildings is unknown. The site appears to have been a specialized artisan village making the fine polychrome pottery. In addition to the painted polychrome wares, other finds include steatite pendants and small stone discs with incised designs, probably early stamp seals. There was pottery of northern Ubaid style and fine Halaf pottery, and stone amulets and figurines.
Arslantepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Chalcolithic-to-Roman site in eastern Anatolia with monuments of the Syro-Hittites (early 1st millennium BC) and earlier settlements of the Late Uruk period (mid-4th millennium BC).
Ascalon: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Askalon, Askelon
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Philistine city on the southern coast of Palestine, southwest of Jerusalem. Excavations have uncovered remains of the Roman period, with some small areas of Philistine levels. Egyptian texts describe Ascalon as one of the cities that revolted against Rameses II. During the Roman period, Ascalon was the birthplace of Herod the Great. It flourished during that time and was occupied in the Byzantine and Arab periods.
Ashkelon: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palestinian site of the Late Bronze Age with artifacts of Egyptian and Cypriote origin. There was an Iron Age Philistine city and material from the Roman period.
Ashoka (d 238 BC?): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: also Asoka, Asokan
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The last major emperor of the Mauryan empire of India in the 3rd century BC. He started out as a bloody tyrant, but underwent a spiritual crisis and became a Buddhist, furthering the expansion of that religion throughout India. His reign was c 265-238 BC but has also been given as c 273-232 BC. His kingdom included most of modern Pakistan and India, except the extreme south. Many monuments survive from his period: stupas, rock-cut temples, and commemorative pillars. A series of inscriptions, enshrining Buddhist teaching, survives on rock faces and stone pillars in various parts of the empire.
Ashurnasirpal II (fl. 8th century BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Assurnasirpal II
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: King of Assyria 883-859 BC, who consolidated the conquests of his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II, and commanded the last period of Assyrian power before the establishment of the New Assyrian Empire. His military expeditions took him as far as the Mediterranean and, according to his own testimony, he was a brilliant general and administrator. He set the standards of military achievement and brutality which made the Assyrians feared throughout the Near and Middle East. The details of his reign are known almost entirely from his own inscriptions and the reliefs in the ruins of his palace at Calah (now Nimrud, Iraq). He refounded Calah as a military capital beside Assur and Nineveh. By 879 BC the main palace in the citadel, the temples of Ninurta and Enlil, shrines for other deities, and the city wall had been completed. Botanic gardens and a zoological garden were laid out, and water supplied by a canal from the Great Zab River. His son and successor, Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC) expanded the empire.
askos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Greek bag""
CATEGORY: artifact; ceramics
DEFINITION: An assymetric vessel, often squat and duck-shaped, with an off-center mouth, convex top, and single arching handle. It was originally shaped like a leather bottle (uter) for holding water, oil, or wine. Some example have two mouths, one for filling and one for emptying, and others are quite unbalanced and have strange mouths. It later assumed the form of an earthenware pitcher. Askos were popular in the Aegean from the Early Helladic to the Classical period.
Asmar, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Eshnunna
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The ancient city of Eshnunna on the Diyala River of Iraq, inhabited from the Uruk to Old Babylonian period. Excavations here have provided the archaeological definition of the Early Dynastic and Akkadian periods. In the early 2nd millennium BC, Tell Asmar was the center of the kingdom of Eshnunna.
assemblage: CATEGORY: artifact; term
DEFINITION: A group of objects of different or similar types found in close association with each other and thus considered to be the product of one people from one period of time. Where the assemblage is frequently repeated and covers a reasonably full range of human activity, it is described as a culture; where it is repeated but limited in content, e.g. flint tools only (a set of objects in one medium), it is called an industry. When a group of industries are found together in a single archaeological context, it is called an assemblage. Such a group characterizes a certain culture, era, site, or phase and it is the sum of all subassemblages. Assemblage examples are artifacts from a site or feature.
Assyria: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Assyrians
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The name of three different empires dating from about 2000-600 BC, the city-state of Assur, and the people inhabiting this northeastern area of Mesopotamia. Originally Semitic nomads in northern Mesopotamia, they finally settled around Assur and accepted its tutelary god as their own. After the fall of the 3rd Dynasty of Ur (2004 BC), Assyria seems to have become an independent city-state and important as middleman in international trade. In its period of greatness, 883-612 BC, there was continuous war in Assyria to keep the empire's lands which at their widest extended from the Nile to near the Caspian, and from Cilicia to the Persian Gulf (Egypt, much of the area to the west as far as the Mediterranean, Elam to the east and parts of Anatolia to the north). Its greatest kings were all warriors, Ashurnasirpal II, Shalmaneser III, Tiglathpileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, and Ashurbanipal, who made the name of Assyria feared throughout the ancient East through their military skill and brutality. The main achievements in Assyria, outside warfare, were in architecture and sculpture, particularly the protective winged bulls, etc., which guarded all palace entrances, and the magnificent reliefs of battles, hunts, and military processions which adorned the walls. Assurnasirpal II (833-859 BC) transferred the center of government to Calah (Nimrud). The fortunes of the empire rose and fell under the kings of the 9th-7th centuries: Assurbanipal (668-627 BC) reconquered Egypt, but in 614 BC the empire fell when the Medes invaded Assyria, captured Calah, and destroyed Assur.
Assyrian: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: One of the two main dialects of ancient Mesopotamia, used in the north. A Semitic language very close to Babylonian, from which it is thought to have diverged at the end of the 2nd millennium. Assyrian probably disappeared with the destruction of Assyria in 7th century BC. Old Assyrian cuneiform is attested mostly in the records of Assyrian trading colonists in central Asia Minor (c. 1950 BC; the so-called Cappadocian tablets) and Middle Assyrian in an extensive Law Code and other documents. The Neo-Assyrian period was the great era of Assyrian power, and the writing culminated in the extensive records from the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (c. 650 BC).
Asuka: CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: A culture and period in Japanese history during which the development of art, the introduction of Buddhism from Korea, and the adoption of a Chinese pattern of government were important. Located in the southwestern part of the Nara Basin (Yamato Plain), the culture flourished from 552-645 AD. In art history, the Asuka culture refers to early Buddhist art and architecture in the Northern Wei style. In chronology, the Asuka period refers more to the reign of Soga family during which Buddhism was promoted and a formal administrative structure with diplomatic relations was introduced. Many old temples and palaces are surviving examples of Asuka architecture, sculpture, and paintings.
Atchana, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Alalakh
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A mound on the Amuq plain of northern Syria (southeastern Turkey), next to the River Orontes and identified as the ancient city of Alalakh with occupation levels from the 4th-late 2nd millennium BC. Seventeen building phases spanned c 3400-1200 BC, including a long Copper Age, a period as an independent state, and one as a provincial capital of the Hittites. There was a mix of cultural influences from Mesopotamia and the Aegean. Atchana was wealthy from trade and from the timber of the Amanus Mountains. Woolley discovered the remains of a small kingdom of largely Hurrian population. In level VII, dated to the 18th and 17th centuries BC, was the palace of Yaram-Lim II (Yamhad) demonstrating an early form of Syrian architecture in which stone, timber and mud-brick were all used. Another palace was excavated in level IV, of the late 15th and early 14th centuries, belonging to Niqmepa, with rooms around a central court and a large number of tablets in Akkadian cuneiform. The tablets describe trading with cities such as Ugarit and the Hittite capital Hattusas, involving food products such as wheat, wine, and olive oil. Later in the 14th century the city fell to the Hittites and became a provincial capital of the Hittite empire. It was eventually abandoned after destruction c 1200 BC, perhaps at the hands of the Peoples Of The Sea.
Athenian pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Pottery produced in Athens from the Late Geometric period of monumental craters and amphorae through the Hellenistic period. The best known is the figure-decorated pottery of the Archaic and Classical periods that was widely exported along with plain wares.
Athens: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Athínai (modern Greek), Athenai (ancient Greek)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important classical Greek city-state with evidence for continuous occupation from the Late Neolithic, but because of its continuous occupation and the resulting disturbance of the earlier levels, its history is told from the time of the Mycenaeans in the Late Bronze Age. The citadel on the Acropolis was walled early in its history. It is the capital of Greece and generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization. Athens is best known for its temples and public buildings of antiquity. The Parthenon, a columned, rectangular temple built for the city's patron goddess, Athena, is considered to be the culmination of the Doric order of classical Greek architecture. Also located on the Acropolis are the Erechtheum, originally the temple of both Athena and Poseidon, and the Propylaea, the entrance of which is through the wall of the Acropolis. At the foot of the Acropolis, to the south, are the theaters of Herodes and Dionysus, while to the northwest is the Agora, the ancient marketplace of the city. The Kerameikos cemetery documents the city's Iron Age (c 11-8 BC), after which archaeology and history combine to tell of its brilliance through the classical period. It supposedly rivaled Knossos and later resisted successive waves of Dorian invaders. It is still not clear how far Athens, perhaps the base of the very early Ionian colonies, managed to ride out the 'dark age' that followed the collapse of Mycenaean civilization. There is evidence of a cultural and commercial renaissance in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. A major component of this socioeconomic revolution was the borrowing of the Phoenician alphabet for the writing of Greek. Commercial success brought rapid economic growth and a population explosion. New ideas were imported and political upheaval led to experiments in government, such as democracy. Athens resisted Persian invaders and developed a prestige which allowed the establishment of the Delian League and the extension of her political power -- the Athenian empire. In the years 447-431 BC, under Pericles, vast sums were spent on public works, such as the new group of buildings on the Acropolis including the Parthenon. Pericles would not grant the Hellenes the freedom requested by Sparta, which led to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) after which Athens was a dependent of Sparta. Escape from Spartan imperialism in the 4th century BC was threatened by Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. By the end of the century, Macedon dominated and Athens did not achieve independence until 228 BC. Rome then intruded in the 2nd and 1st centuries and Athens was sieged and plundered by Sulla. During the Imperial period, Athens was confined to a role as a cultural center and seat of learning for the rich -- which lasted into the 6th century AD, when the edict of Justinian in 529 closed down the schools of philosophy. By the Byzantine period, Athens had become a modest provincial town. Athens' ruins will be difficult to protect from the corrosive atmosphere and millions of visiting tourists.
atlas: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: atlantes (plural) telamon (Latin), caryatid (female)
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In Greek architecture, male figures which were so called for the story of Titan Atlas, in which humans were used instead of columns to support entablatures, balconies, or other projections. Such figures are posed as if supporting great weights, just as Atlas was bearing the world. The female counterpart is the caryatid, but it is not similarly posed. The earliest known examples of true atlantes occur on a colossal scale in the Greek temple of Zeus (c 500 BC) in Sicily. Atlantes were used only rarely in the Middle Ages but reappeared in the Mannerist and Baroque periods.
Avebury, Lord (formerly Sir John Lubbock) (1834-1913): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British archaeologist whose book Prehistoric Times" (7 editions between 1865-1913) achieved bestseller status. An early convert to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution Lord Avebury popularized prehistory both as a term and a subject. He introduced the words "Palaeolithic" (old) and "Neolithic" (new) thereby expanding the three-age system (Thomsen and Worsaae) to a four-age system dividing the Stone Age into old and new periods. He also interpreted cultural change as evidence of invasion from the east and the development of society as the result of economic advance."
ax factory: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: axe factory
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: An often isolated outcrop of high-quality rock in Europe during the Neolithic period. These sources were exploited for the production of polished stone axes and this became an important industry of the time. The tools were roughly flaked at the factory sites and traded, either as blanks or as finished axes. There were many ax factories in Britain's highlands, northern Ireland, and northwest France. Microscopic analysis is used to identify the rocks by their distinctive crystalline structure, which has enabled the trading networks to be reconstructed.
Aymara: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A large South American tribal group occupying the Titicaca plateau (central Andes) in the Late Intermediate Period -- and the language spoken by them. The Aymara language is still spoken some parts of Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. The Aymara kingdoms" -- Canchi Colla Lupaca Collagua Ubina Pacasa Caranga Charca Quillaca Omasuyo and Collahuaya -- fought amongst themselves but also shared cultural characteristics. Some of these characteristics appear to have been incorporated into the Inca political system such as class stratification a powerful ruling class and chullpa burials. The peoples lived by cultivating tubers and herding alpaca and llama."
Azilian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mesolithic (or Epi-Palaeolithic) culture of southwest France and northern Spain, which seems to follow the Late Magdalenian of the area. It falls within the Late Glacial Period and may be correlated with the Allerod oscillation of the 10th millennium BC (c 9000 to 8000 BC). The culture was characterized by flint microliths, pebbles painted with schematic designs, small thumb-scrapers, fish hooks, and flat bone antler harpoons. It is named for Le Mas d'Zail, a massive cave region in southern France where such artifacts were first discovered in 1889. The Azilians were food gatherers who had domesticated the dog. The Oban and Oransay cultures are degenerated Azilian.
Aztec: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mexica, Tenochcas
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The last pre-Columbian civilization to enter the Valley of Mexico after the collapse of the Toltec civilization in c 12 AD, who built a magnificent capital at Tenochtitlán and were later conquered by the Spaniards (1521). They called themselves the Mexica or Tenochca and were the dominant political group of the Late Post-Classic Period. The people spoke Nahuatl. Their origin is obscure, partly because of the deliberate destruction of their own records, but tradition says that in 1193 AD the last of seven Chichimec tribes left Aztlan , a mythical birthplace somewhere north or west of Mexico, and filtered south. For a while they lived around Lake Texococo, but in 1345 they were allowed to found Tenochtitlán (under present-day Mexico City) on some unoccupied islands. By 1428 Tenochtitlán, Texococo, and Tlacopan formed an independent state which controlled most of present-day Mexico from the desert zone in the north to Oaxaca in the south, with extensions as far as the Guatemalan border -- all through military expansion. By inclination and training the Aztecs were militaristic, and a person's status depended on his success as a warrior. The chief god of the Aztecs, Huitzilopochtli, was a war god who required the blood of sacrificial victims, and only constant warfare supplied the altar of the god. Human sacrifice was necessary also to ensure the daily rising of the sun. Other major deities were Huitzilpotchtli (the warrior god and chief deity of Tenochtitlan), Texcatlipoca (god of night, death and destruction), Xipe Totec (god of spring and renewal), and Quetzacoatl, the plumed serpent (god of self-sacrifice and inventor of agriculture and the calendar). Tenochtitlán became a great imperial city, so large that it could not be self-sufficient but had to rely on tributes from its provinces. Luxury goods and necessities were brought to the city, and craftsmen produced jewelry, turquoise mosaics, featherwork, and carved stone. Mold-made clay figurines were common, and the black-on-orange pottery was decorated with geometrical designs and stylized creatures. Little architecture or painting survived the Spanish conquest of 1521. Copies of several books have been preserved (as the Dresden Codex). Aztec society was set in a clearly defined hierarchical class system. At the top was the ruling class (pipil) from whom and by whom the emperors were chosen. The mass of the population were freeman (machuale) and under them were the serfs (mayeques) and then at the bottom the slaves. Most people were of the landholding group called the calpulli, which had its own internal hierarchy. Change of social class was possible through state service in the military and sometimes through merchant activity. The merchants (pochteca) served as early-reconnaissance and espionage groups. The arrival of the Spaniards and the fall of Tenochtitlán after a 90-day siege marked the end of Aztec dominance.
bâton de commandement: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A name given to perforated batons made of antler rod of the Upper Palaeolithic period in western Europe, from the Aurignacian period (30,000 years ago) through the Magdalenian. They have a hole through the thickest part of the head are usually 30 cm long, but are often broken. The perforation is smooth and round and highly decorated examples come from the Magdalenian culture. Their use is unknown.
Babylon: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bab-ilu (Babylonian), Bab-ilim (Old Babylonian), Bavel or Babel (Hebrew), Atlal Babil (Arabic)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the most famous cities of antiquity, the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BC and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. It was located about 80 km south of Baghdad, Iraq on the Euphrates River. Babylon was occupied from the 3rd millennium BC, but it first reached prominence under King Hammurabi (reigned 1792-1750 BC), who made it the capital of his empire. (Hammurabi is best known for his code of laws.) Babylon was destroyed by the Hittites c 1595 BC and ruled by the Kassites until c 1157 BC. The city had frequent wars with Elam and Assyria during several short-lived dynasties until the 11th and last dynasty (626-539 BC), when the city was at its highest development and largest size. This last dynasty -- that of Nebuchadnezzar -- was instrumental in destroying Assyria and it conquered lands from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean before being overthrown by Cyrus in 539 BC. It continued in existence through the Achaemenid period, though with much reduced importance, until its abandonment in 641 AD after the Muslim conquest. The city itself covered around 200 hectares and had a population of about 100,000. Excavations beginning at the turn of the 20th century revealed the city's plan and scanty remains of the ziggurat, the original Tower of Babel. The high water table, which has risen in the last few millennia, allowed those excavators (R. Koldewey from 1899-1917) access to only buildings of the Neo-Babylonian period. The ruins, including temples (some for Marduk, the city's patron deity), fortifications, palaces, and the substructure of the Hanging Gardens, have not held up well over time, especially due to brick-robbing. The finest surviving monument is the Ishtar Gate and Procession Street. Important buildings excavated include Nebuchadnessar's palace, close to the Ishtar Gate, a huge building with many rooms arranged around five different courtyards. Another huge palace of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (605-562 BC) -- the 'Summer Palace' -- was constructed to the northwest of the Inner City and was enclosed by a triangular outer wall.
Bactria: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bactriana, Zariaspa
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: An ancient country (satrapy) lying in a fertile region between the mountains of the Hindu Kush (Paropamisus) and the Amu Darya (ancient Oxus River) in what is now part of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Bactria was especially important between c 600 BC-600 AD, as a center for meeting and trading between the East (China) and West (Mediterranean). It was a satrapy of the Achaemenid empire and was conquered by Alexander the Great in 329 BC. Many Greeks settled in Bactria in the Seleucid period which followed. . Consequently, Greek influence on the culture of central Asia and northwestern India was considerable, especially in art, architecture, coins, and writing. Bactria's capital was Bactra (also called Bactra-Zariaspa; probably modern Balkh, ancient Vahlika).
Badorf ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A type of pottery of the 8th-9th centuries in the hills of Cologne, Germany. The globular pitchers and bowls of the Carolingian period are the best known. Badorf-ware kilns have been excavated at Bruhl-Eckdorf and Walberberg and products have been found in the Netherlands, eastern England, and in Denmark. In the 9th century, the pots began to be decorated with red paint. Gradually new forms and styles known as Pingsdorf Wares evolved.
Bahariya Oasis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: al-Bahriyah Oasis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A fertile depression in the northeast Libyan Desert about 200 km west of the Nile. Archaeological remains date mainly from the early New Kingdom to the Roman period (c 1550 BC-395 AD).
Bahrain: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island in the Persian Gulf that has been identified with the ancient land of Dilmun (Telmun) of about 2000 BC, a prosperous trading center linking Sumeria with the Indus Valley. Written records of the archipelago exist in Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman sources. Burial mounds in the north of Bahrain Island suggest a period of Sumerian influence in the 3rd millennium BC. There are densely packed fields of tumuli in Bahrain and at several places on the adjacent mainland. They are associated with densely packed complexes of cist burials. Excavation has shown the island to be an important link in the sea trade between that region and the Indus civilization. Two important sites in the north of the island belong to the 'Dilmun period': a walled town at Qala'at al-Bahrain and a complex temple building at Barbar. Among the finds of this period are circular steatite stamp 'Persian Gulf' seals, related to Indus Valley seals, but probably made locally.
Baikal Neolithic: CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The Neolithic period of the Lake Baikal region in eastern Siberia. Stratified sites in the area show a long, gradual move from the Palaeolithic to Neolithic stage, starting in the 4th millennium BC. The Postglacial culture was not true" Neolithic in that it farmed but Neolithic in the sense of using pottery. It was actually a Mongoloid hunting-and-fishing culture (except in southern Siberia around the Aral Sea) with a microlithic flint industry with polished-stone blade tools together with antler bone and ivory artifacts; pointed- or round-based pottery and the bow and arrow. Points and scrapers made on flakes of Mousterian aspect and pebble tools showing a survival of the ancient chopper-chopping tool tradition of eastern Asia have also been found. There was a woodworking and quartzite industry and some cattle breeding. The first bronzes of the region are related to the Shang period of northern China and the earliest Ordos bronzes. The area covers the mountainous regions from Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean and the taiga (coniferous forest) and tundra of northern Siberia. A first stage is name for the site Isakovo and is known only from a small number of burials in cemeteries. The succeeding Serovo stage is also known mainly from burials with the addition of the compound bow backed with bone plates. The third phase named Kitoi has burials with red ochre and composite fish hooks possibly indicate more fishing. The succeeding Glazkovo phase of the 2nd millennium BC saw the beginnings of metal-using but generally showed continuity in artifact and burial types. Some remains of semi-subterranean dwellings with centrally located hearths occur together with female statuettes in bone."
Baile Herculane: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large cave site in Rumania where flint implements from the Paleolithic Period (about 2,500,000 years ago) and Neolithic objects were found. There is important Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Copper Age stratigraphy comprising three main occupation horizons: Upper Palaeolithic levels corresponding to the Würm II phase and defined by a quartzite industry with end scrapers; a late Mesolithic level with microlithic flints, crude quartzite tools, and Danube fish bones; and levels of Late Copper Age occupation.
Balearic Islands: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A group of islands including Majorca (Mallorca), Minorca, Ibiza, and Formentera, off the east coast of Spain. Various civilizations left their marks on the islands, though the prehistoric talayotic civilization (so-called from its rough stone towers called talayots) seems to have continued without modification for 2600 years. Their position in the Mediterranean laid them open to continuous influence from eastern civilizations, as is found in archaeological finds. Bronze swords, single and double axes, antennae swords, and heads and figures of bulls and other animals are found. Native talayotic pottery was consistent until the Roman occupation. Their most interesting period was the Bronze Age with three important monuments: the Naveta, Talayot, and Taula. The islands were successively ruled by Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Moors, and Spaniards.
ball-court: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ballcourt, ball court
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The structure upon which the ball game was played in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. It was shaped like a capital I with exaggerated end pieces, and in the Post-Classic period stone rings or macaw heads were fixed to the side walls. Aztec records say that the team which passed the ball through one of these rings won the game outright.
ball-game: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ballgame, ball game; ollama, pok-ta-pok
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The ritual and sporting activity played throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, especially in Mexico and Guatemala from the Pre-Classic period. (Stone reliefs at Dainzu and the possible remains of a ball court at San Lorenzo Tenochititlan indicate that the game existed as early as Pre-Classic times.) It may have originated among the Olmecs (La Venta culture, c 800-400 BC) or even earlier and it spread to other cultures, including Monte Albán and El Tajín; the Maya (called pok-ta-pok); and the Toltec, Mixtec, and Aztec. In Aztec times, it was a nobles' game and was often accompanied by heavy betting. Various myths mention the ball game, sometimes as a contest between day and night deities. It is still played in isolated regions. The players, who were sometimes heavily padded, were allowed to use only their hips and thighs in propelling a rubber ball around the court. The ball-court itself was shaped like a capital I with exaggerated end pieces, and in the Post-Classic period stone rings or macaw heads were fixed to the side walls. Aztec records say that the team which passed the ball through one of these rings won the game outright. Tlachtli is the name of the court itself, but also for the game. Tlachtli and ollama are Nahuatl words. There was considerable diversity in the rules both over time and across culture. Death through injury was not unusual and the loss of a game could sometimes result in the sacrifice of the losing team. There is a considerable inventory of artifacts associated with the ball game, including hachas, palmas, court markers, elbow stones, and yokes.
Ballana and Qustul: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Two Nubian necropolis sites on opposing sides of the Nile, 15 km south of Abu Simbel and now submerged under Lake Nassar. Ballana was the type site of a period which lasted from the decline of the Meroitic empire to the arrival of Christianity (c 350-700 AD). Some pictographic writing dating c 3400-3100 BC was discovered at Qustul on pottery, slate palettes, and stone. Qustul may have been one of the earliest places of state formation in the world when rulers of the A-Group culture adopted symbols of kingship similar to those of contemporary kings of Egypt's Naqadah II-III periods.
Bambata Cave: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A large cave of southwestern Zimbabwe, where excavations have revealed a long sequence of occupation over the past 50,000 years. The site gives its name to a stone industry and pottery type, but they are widely separated periods. There are rock paintings on the cave walls and sheep bones, found in the same archaeological levels as pottery, have been dated to 150 BC. The Bambata industry, dated between the 50th-20th millennia BC, used prepared cores to produce (unretouched) flakes for scrapers and slender unifacial or bifacial lances or spear points. Its distribution extended north to Zambia and south to the Orange Free State and perhaps the Cape. Bambata pottery ware is known only from contexts of the 1st millennium ad in Zimbabwe. It is elaborately decorated with stamped designs.
baray: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Large rectangular water reservoirs of the Angkor period in Khmer.
bark beater: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: a stone, wood, or other hard material which was used in the Precolumbian period to soften bark for making clothing or architecture
bark shrine: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mammisi, bark
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A type of small temple in the shape of a Nile boat, which their prows and sterns decorated with the aegis of a god. The cabin contained the cult image of the deity. The term also refers to a small temple, attached to the main temples of the Late and Greco-Roman periods. These were where the god of the main temple was born" or if the main temple was dedicated to a goddess the bark shrine was where she bore her child."
barrel urn: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of large middle Bronze Age pot found within the overall repertoire of the Deverel-Rimbury ceramic tradition of southern Britain in the period 1500 BC through to 1200 BC. Usually over 60cm high, barrel urns have a distinctive profile, wider in the middle than at the base or the rim, often with applied cordons that are decorated with finger-tip impressions. Found on domestic sites where they were presumably used as storage vessels and as containers for cremations often found as secondary burials in earlier round barrows.
barrow: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: burial mound; tumulus; burial cairn
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A round or elongated mound of earth or stones used in early times to cover one or more burials; a grave mound. The mound is often surrounded by a ditch, and the burials may be contained within a cist, mortuary enclosure, mortuary house, or chamber tomb. There are two types, the long (elongated) and the round barrow (also known as tumuli). The former were built in the Late Stone Age, the latter in the Bronze Age, though burial under a round mound was occasionally practiced during the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking periods.. The long barrow was a tribal or family burial vault built of stone slabs, some weighing many tons, and covered with earth or stones. The large, round barrows were often communal. They are often found in prehistoric sites in Britain -- earthen (or unchambered) long barrows from the Early and Middle Neolithic (Windmill Hill Culture). Other long barrows were constructed over megalithic tombs of gallery grave types. Most of the British round barrows incorporate circles of stakes. Bowl barrows --- simple round mounds, often surrounded by a ditch --- were the most common form, used throughout the Bronze Age and sporadically also in the Iron Age. The Wessex Culture of the southern English Early Bronze Age was characterized by special types of barrows: bell, disk, saucer, and pond barrows. Bell barrows have relatively small mounds and a berm or gap between the mound and the ditch; disk barrows are very small mounds in the center of a circular open space, surrounded by a ditch; saucer barrows are low disk-like mounds occupying the entire space up to the ditch; while the oddly named pond barrows are not mounds at all, but circular dish-shaped enclosures surrounded by an external bank. The related term 'cairn' is used to describe a mound constructed exclusively of stone. Barrow burials occur also in Roman and post-Roman times: one of the most famous of all barrows in Britain is that covering the Anglo-Saxon boat burial at Sutton Hoo.
Barumini: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: su Nuraxi
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a nurage (towerlike monument) in southern Sardinia with a radiocarbon date for c 1800 BC which remained in occupation until the Roman period after being temporarily deserted in the 6th c BC. It began as a single tower c 17 meters high, and was later surrounded by a perimeter wall with a complex of smaller towers and a village of stone huts.
baselard: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of dagger, usually used by civilians in the medieval period, with a H shaped hilt.
Basin of Mexico: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A basin enclosed by mountains with cultural remains as early as 19,000 BC at Tlapacoya and 15,000 BC at Tlatilco. The Basin contains the current capital, Mexico City, Mexico, the remains of Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, and the cities of Cuicuilco and Teotihuacán. Dry farming, swidden agriculture, chinampas, and irrigation have been used to cultivate the area. Important periods in the area's prehistory were from c 100 BC-650 AD and from 1200-1520 AD, before the Spanish conquest.
Basket Maker: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Basketmakers
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Two early chronological periods of the early Puebloans or Anasazi -- 100-500 AD, followed by the Modified Basket Maker period, 500-700; They lived people in the Four Corners area (northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah, and northeastern Arizona) of the U.S. The origin of the Basket Maker Indians is not known, but it is evident that when they first settled in the area they were already excellent basket weavers and that they were supplementing hunting and wild-seed gathering with the cultivation of maize and pumpkins. They lived either in caves or out in the open in shelters constructed of a masonry of poles and adobe mud. Both caves and houses contained special pits, often roofed over, that were used for food storage. The Basket Makers were among the first village agricultural societies in the Southwest. Three Basketmaker stages were recognized at the 1927 Pecos Conference of Southwesternists: Basketmaker I (hypothetical), Basketmaker II (1--450 AD) which was a large base camp and widely scattered seasonal camps where the preferred container was the basket, and Basketmaker III (450--700/750) in which there were small villages of pit houses in well-watered valley bottoms. Specialized structures such as wattle-and-daub storage bins and large rooms for communal activity (possibly early kivas) also began to occur more frequently in the latter stage.
Basta, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Per-Bastet, Bubastis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a temple and town in the eastern Nile Delta, about 80 km northeast of Cairo which flourished from the 4th Dynasty to the end of the Roman period (c 2614 BC-AD 395). The main monument at the site is the red granite temple of the cat-goddess Bastet.
Bastet: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bastis, Bast, Ubasti
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: The ancient Lower Egyptian goddess worshipped in the form of a lioness, and later a cat. Bastet's form was often changed after the domestication of the cat around 1500 BC. Her principal cult center was Bubastis in the Nile River delta but she also had an important cult at Memphis. In the Late and Ptolemaic periods large cemeteries of mummified cats were created at both sites, and thousands of bronze statuettes of the goddess were put there as votive offerings. Her cult was carried to Italy by the Romans, and traces have been found in Rome, Ostia, Nemi, and Pompeii.
Batán Grande: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large architectural complexes of South America located in the Lambayeque valley of north coastal Peru. The site has more than 30 huge platform mounds with an estimated 750,000 burials -- most of them looted by treasure hunters who have taken immense quantities of gold, silver, copper, and bronze objects. Occupation at Batán Grande went from the Formative (Cupisnique) to the Inca period. The site was the capital of a powerful state between 850-1300 AD. With Batán Grande, Cerro de los Cementerios was a copper-processing area, linked to the Cerro Blanco mine by a prehistoric road. Excavations have revealed metal artifacts, smelting furnaces, grinding slabs, crushed slag, and pottery blowtubes.
battleship curve: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: battleship-shaped curve
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A lens-shaped seriation graph formed by plotted points representing artifact type frequencies. The rise in popularity of an artifact, its period of maximum popularity, and the artifact's eventual decline would be plotted, as well as its origin and disappearance.
bear: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: A large carnivore of the family Ursidae, closely related to the dog (family Canidae) and raccoon (Procyonidae). The bear is the most recently evolved of carnivores and it appears to have diverged from the dog family during the Miocene. It evolved through such forms as the Pliocene Hyaenarctos (of Europe, Asia, and North America), into modern types such as the black and brown bear (Ursus). Today's bears are of three groups: the brown bears, the black bears, and the polar bear. Occasional finds of fossil polar bear bones outside the Arctic Circle are presumably related to the presence of pack ice and ice shelves at the edges of ice sheets during glaciations. Brown bears existed in Europe and Asia during the late Quaternary period. One very large variant evolved in Europe, the 'Cave Bear', whose fossils are quite common in Quaternary cave deposits.
beehive tomb: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: tholos
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: An architectural structure of the Mycenaean civilization, a pointed dome built up of overhanging (corbeled) blocks of conglomerate masonry cut and polished, often with an alley or approach and a great door. The rich or noble of the Bronze Age were buried in these sometimes enormous, perfectly proportioned vaults though they were built in the Shaft Grave Period as well, perhaps first in Messenia in the 16th century and then in Greece by the middle of the 15th century. The tholos tomb has three parts: a narrow entranceway, or dromos, often lined with fieldstones and later with cut stones; a deep doorway, or stomion, covered over with one to three lintel blocks; and a circular chamber with a high vaulted or corbeled roof, the thalamos. Most tholos tombs have collapsed, often when the lintel cracked and gave way, and their contents have largely been looted
Beersheba: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Israel which was a frontier post in ancient Palestine. The earliest occupations were in 12th and 11th centuries BC, but the first town belonged to the period of the United Monarchy (10th century). The 8th century BC town wall with a great gateway flanked by double guard chambers and external towers has been excavated. There was also a 15-meter ring road inside the wall which divided the inner and outer towns. Beersheba may have been the administrative center of the region and there are indications of storerooms which may have contained the royal stores for the collection of taxes in kind (grain, wine, oil, etc.). The town was destroyed in the mid-7th century BC. Beersheba is first mentioned as the site where Abraham, founder of the Jewish people, made a covenant with the Philistine king Abimelech of Gerar (Genesis 21). Isaac and Jacob, the other patriarchs, also lived there (Genesis 26, 28, 46).
Behbet el-Hagar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Per-hebyt, Iseum
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town in the northern central Nile Delta which flourished in the 30th Dynasty (380-343 BC) and the Ptolemaic period (332-30 BC). The site is dominated by the remains of a large granite temple of Isis.
Beijing: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pei-ching, Peking
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The modern capital of China. More than 2,000 years ago, a site just outside present-day Peking was already an important military and trading center for the northeastern frontier of China. The Shang civilization reached this area in the early part of their dynasty and a grave of c 14th century BC at Pinggu Liujiacun contained bronze ritual vessels and a bronze ax with a blade of forged meteoritic iron. There have been many early Zhou finds, notably at the cemetery site of Fangshan Liulihe. In 1267, during the Yüan (Mongol) dynasty (1206-1368), a new city built on the site (called Ta-tu) which became the administrative capital of China. During the reigns of the first two emperors of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Nanking was the capital, and the old Mongol capital was renamed Pei-p'ing (Northern Peace"); the third Ming emperor however restored it as the Imperial seat of the dynasty and gave it a new name Peking ("Northern Capital"). Peking has remained the capital of China except for a brief period (1928-49) when the Nationalist government again made Nanking the capital (then to Chungking during World War II)."
Belgae: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Any of the inhabitants of Gaul north of the Sequana and Matrona (Seine and Marne) rivers of mixed Celtic and Germanic origin, first described by Julius Caesar in mid-first century BC. Their origins on the continent can be traced back to the La Tène period in the 5th century BC and evidence suggests that the Romans penetrated into those areas about 150 BC. In Caesar's day, they held much of Belgium and parts of northern France and southeast England. The Belgae of Gaul formed a coalition against Caesar after his first Gallic campaign but were subdued the following year (57 BC). During the first half of the 1st century BC, Belgae from the Marne district had crossed to Britain and had formed the kingdom that in 55 BC was ruled by Cassivellaunus. After further Gallic victories (54-51 BC) by Caesar, other settlers took refuge across the Channel, and Belgic culture spread to most of lowland Britain. The three most important Belgic kingdoms, identified by their coinage, were centered at Colchester, St. Albans, and Silchester. Archaeologically, the Belgae can be identified with the bearers of the Aylesford-Swarling culture, otherwise known as Iron Age C. Coinage, the heavy plow, and the potter's wheel were introduced by the Belgae. They lived in large fortified settlements called oppida and amphorae and Italian bronze vessels have been found in their richly furnished tombs.
belt hook: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: toggle
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small decorative and functional objects used as garment hooks in China, Korea, and other Near Eastern areas as early as the 7th century BC. Belt hooks have been found in Han tombs in southwestern China, but this luxury item was most in vogue during the Warring States period (5th-3rd centuries BC). These belt hooks were inlaid with gold or silver foil, polished fragments of turquoise, or more rarely with jade or glass; sometimes they were gilded. Most examples are bronze, often lavishly decorated with inlays, but some are made of jade, gold, or iron. The belt hook consists of a bar or flat strip curving into a hook at one end and carrying at the other end, on the back, a button for securing it to the belt. The hooks vary widely in size, shape, and design, and although contemporary sculptures sometimes show them at the waists of human figures, some examples are far too large to have been worn and their function is unclear. Textual evidence hints that the belt hook was adopted by the Chinese from the mounted nomads of the northern frontier of inner Asia, perhaps along with other articles of the horseman's costume. They were probably worn by both men and women.
Benin City: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Edo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Capital and largest city of Edo state, Nigeria, which rose to prominence in the 13th century. A series of massive city wall, over 100 km in length, was constructed. The Portuguese first visited in 1485 and it was burned down and ransacked for nearly 2,500 of its famous bronzes in 1897 when the British occupied the city. Benin City is known for the fine practice the ancient method of cire perdue (lost-wax") bronze castings mostly relief plaques and near life-size human heads produced over a long period. Traces of the old wall and moat remain."
Bergen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Port city of southwestern Norway, originally called Bjørgvin, and founded in 1070 AD by King Olaf III. About 1100, a castle was built on the northern edge of the Vågen harbor, and Bergen became commercially and politically important; it was Norway's capital in the 12th and 13th centuries. Excavations in the Bryggen, the harbor area, have revealed a sequence of levels that illustrate the area's evolution from the 11th century onwards. The levels have been accurately dated by a series of fires which occurred at various stages of Bergen's history. Waterlogged conditions have preserved many of the timber buildings, streets, and quays. The 11th-century houses and warehouses were on piles and had sills at ground level, while jetties became popular in the Hanseatic period (14th and 15th centuries). The excavations revealed a remarkable collection of imported pottery from all over Europe as well as quantities of leather and wooden objects. Parts of three trading ships or freighters were also found, their timbers having been re-used in the buildings.
Bering Land Bridge: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The present-day floor of the Chukchi and Bering Seas, which emerged as dry land during Late Pleistocene glacial advances. It is the only route for faunal exchange between Eurasia and North America as it united Siberia and Alaska. It seems to have been breached only in the past 2.5 million years, with the earliest immigrants crossing it about 40,000-15,000 years ago. They were part of a migratory wave that later reached as far south as South America (about 10,000 years ago). During the Ice Age the sea level fell by several hundred feet, making the strait into a land bridge between Asia and North America, over which a considerable migration of plants and animals, as well as man, occurred. That period also allowed the transit of cold water currents from the Pacific into the Atlantic.
Beringia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The part of the continental shelf that connects Northeast Asia with present-day Alaska. These were the polar continental shelves that escaped glaciation during the ice ages but which were exposed during periods of low sea level, which facilitated migration of people to North America from Asia, and in the Laptev and East Siberian seas. When exposed at the time of the last glacial maximum, it was a large, flat, vegetated landmass. In 1993, investigations on the climatic interstadial of 11,000-12,000 years ago in Beringia (now submerged under the Bering Strait) and the way it provided for the peopling of the New World from Asia were reported. Traces of starch from an apparently domesticated variety of the taro plant on flint tools from the Solomon Islands suggested that conscious planting was being done in the Pacific as long ago as 28,000 years before the present.
Beringian tradition: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: American Paleo-Arctic
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture in existence approximately 12,000 years ago between Siberia and temperate Alaska. The term was used by H. West to cover various Alaskan and Siberian archaeological formations which had developed from the Siberian Upper Paleolithic period, an area now largely submerged under the Bering Strait. Chronologically these formations lie between the middle of the Holocene period (c 35,000-9/10,000 BP), depending on the area. West's categorization includes the Bel'kachi, Diuktai, and Lake Ushki cultures in Siberia, the Denalian culture and American Paleo-Arctic formations in Alaska and the Yukon. Although Alaska is generally thought to be the gateway through which humans entered the New World, the earliest undisputed evidence for people there dates later than 12,000 years ago, well after the climax of the last major glacial advance but while glaciers still covered much of Arctic Canada. Artifacts of 11,500 to 9,000 years ago are known from a number of Alaskan sites, where hunters of caribou (and, in one case, of an extinct form of bison) manufactured blades.
Beth-Shan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bet She'an, Baysan (Arabic), Beisan (modern); Scythopolis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A very large tell of northeastern Israel, site of one of the oldest inhabited cities of ancient Palestine. Overlooking the town to the north is Tel Bet She'an (Arabic Tall al-Husn), one of the most important stratified mounds in Palestine. It was excavated in 1921-1933 by the University of Pennsylvania, which discovered the lowest strata date from the late Chalcolithic period in the country (c 4000-3000 BC) through Bronze Age and Iron Age levels and upward to Byzantine times (c AD 500). Buildings, including temples and administrative buildings, span the Egyptian period -- the earliest from the time of Thutmose III (ruled 1504-1450 BC), and the latest dating to Rameses III (1198-66 BC). Important stelae (stone monuments) show the conquests of Pharaoh Seti I (1318-1304 BC) and of the worship of the goddess Astarte. During the Hellenistic period, the city was called Scythopolis; it was taken by the Romans in 64 BC and given the status of an imperial free city by Pompey. In 1960 a finely preserved Roman amphitheater, with a seating capacity for about 5,000, was excavated. The city was an important center of the Decapolis (a league of 10 Hellenistic cities) and under Byzantine rule was the capital of the northern province of Palaestina Secunda. All these periods were also represented in the surrounding cemeteries. It declined after the Arab conquest (636 AD).
beveled-rim bowl: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: beveled rim bowl
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A widespread, crudely made conical pottery vessel formed in a mold and having a sloped rim, characteristic of the Late Uruk period.
Beycesultan: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell on the upper Meander River of southwestern Anatolia (western Turkey) which has yielded evidence from the Chalcolithic to Late Bronze Age and of a culture contemporary with the Hittite empire. It is thought to have been the capital of the 2nd-millennium BC state of Arzawa. From the Chalcolithic, there was a cache of sophisticated copper tools and a silver ring, the earliest known use of that metal. Buildings that were religious shrines have been uncovered, almost unknown in Anatolia at those times. Rectangular shrine chambers were arranged in pairs, with ritual installations recalling the Horns of Consecration and Tree, or Pillar, cults of Minoan Crete. A palace building at the same site, dating from the Middle Bronze Age (c 1750 BC), Beycesultan's most prosperous period, had reception rooms at first-floor level, also in the Minoan manner. In common with most other Bronze Age buildings in Anatolia, its walls were composed of a brick-filled timber framework on stone foundations. The private houses of this period at Beycesultan were all built on the megaron plan. The whole settlement and a lower terrace on the river was enclosed by a perimeter wall. The town was violently destroyed and though it was rebuilt, it remained relatively poor into the Late Bronze Age.
Bibracte: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Mont Beurvray
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age Gallic town and oppidum in central France. It was the capital of the Aedui tribe at the time of Caesar and the site where he defeated the Helvetii tribe, the climax of his first campaign in Gaul (58 BC). Augustus moved the inhabitants to his new town Augustodunum (Autun), about 30 km away, in 12 BC. Excavations in the 19th century revealed remains of both the Iron age settlement and the Roman period, including a large temple, houses, and metalworking workshops. Imported objects such as coins, amphorae, black and red glaze pottery dating to before the Roman conquest have been found, indicating that Bibracte was a major trading and production center in the late Iron Age.
biface: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bifacial; handaxe; coup-de-poing
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A type of prehistoric stone tool flaked on both faces or sides, the main tool of Homo erectus. The technique was typical of the hand-ax tradition of the Lower Paleolithic period and the Acheulian cultures. Biface may be oval, triangular, or almond-shaped in form and characterized by axial symmetry, even if marks made by use are more plentiful on one face or on one edge. The cutting edge could be straight or jagged and the tool used as a pick, knife, scraper, or even weapon. Only in the most primitive tools was flaking done to one side only.
biome: CATEGORY: flora; fauna
DEFINITION: A complex (biotic) community of plants and animals established over a large geographic area and characterized by the distinctive lifeforms of certain species which live in harmony together and have a certain unity. The biome is a plant-plus-animal formation that is composed of a plant matrix together with all the associated animals. The term specifically applies to such a community in a prehistoric period. Examples are the oak/deer biome or the spruce/moose biome of North America.
Bird, Junius Bouton (1907-1982): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: An American archaeologist who worked in South America at Fell's Cave (Tierra del Fuego) on establishing the presence of Palaeoindians on the continent. He also worked in northern Chile's Atacama region and Huaca Prieta in Peru, where he established the Preceramic Period of that area. His specialty was the study of textiles.
bison: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: The name of two species of wild oxen, the European bison or wisent and the American bison or buffalo. Only a small number of European bison now exist, bred from zoo specimens, and in a protected state in forest of Lithuania. Two further species, now extinct, inhabited Europe and Great Britain for much of the Quaternary period. The great steppe wisent was present during both interglacials and cold period. The smaller wood wisent, was only present in Europe during interglacials. Sometimes these animals are called aurochs. In North America, a number of species preceded today's bison. One species, popularly called 'buffalo', formerly roamed in vast herds over the interior of the continent, mainly in the Rocky Mountains.
black-glazed: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: black-glossed
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A style of pottery decoration in which plain wares are given a black sheen, which continued well into the Hellenistic period -- especially in Athens from the 6th-2nd centuries BC. These wares were often made alongside figure-decorated pottery and from the 5th century BC, the shapes were frequently of stamped decoration. In the 4th century BC, rouletting was also used.
Blackwater Draw: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The deeply stratified type site for the Clovis point and Llano complex, located near Clovis, New Mexico, with evidence of occupation from the earliest Paleo-Indian through the Archaic period. Clovis points have been found associated with mammoth bones and Folsom points have been found with bison bones. Also found: Agate Basin points, Cody complex points, a Frederick point, and tools of the Archaic period. Blackwater Draw is also used to evaluate the chronological sequences at other sites. The Blackwater Draw Museum exhibits 12,000-year-old artifacts from the area's archaeological sites.
blade: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: blade tool; blade-~ (used attributively)
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A long, narrow, sharp-edged, thin flake of stone, used especially as a tool in prehistoric times. This flake is detached by striking from a prepared core, often with a hammer. Its length is usually at least twice the width. The blade may be a tool in itself, or may be the blank from which a two-edged knife, burin, or spokeshave is manufactured. This term, then, is used by archaeologists in several ways: (1) It can refer to a fragment of stone removed from a parent core. The blade is used to manufacture artifacts in what is known as the blade and core industry". (2) That portion of an artifact usually a projectile point or a knife beyond the base or tang. (3) In certain cultures small artifacts are called microblades. It was a great technological advance when it was discovered that a knapper could make more than one tool from a chunk of stone. The Châtelperronian and Aurignacian were the earliest of the known blade cultures -- associated with the arrival of modern humans. Industries in which many of the tools are made from blades became prominent at the start of the Upper Palaeolithic period. A typical blade has parallel sides and regular scars running down its back parallel with the sides. A 'backed blade' is a blade with one edge blunted by the removal of tiny flakes. Blades led to another invention -- the handle. A handle made it easier and much safer to manipulate a sharp two-edged blade."
blade core: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flint or stone core from which blades have been struck. Such cores are typically conical or pyramidal in shape; to produce regular even blades a certain degree of preparation is needed as well as periodic rejuvenation. Both these activities produce their own distinctive debitage.
blanket peat: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: Peat that forms in areas of high rainfall that is not dependent on groundwater but receives all its moisture from the atmosphere. It can form on higher ground like plateaus. In periods of climatic change, blanket peat alters its nature, such as by developing tree cover in drier periods and then recurring as a bog when rainfall increases. In a peat bog of this type there may be well-preserved evidence of human activity and organic material in the drier times which is later covered by renewed peat growth.
Blue willow pottery: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Blue Willow, first made in England over 200 years ago, is said to be America's favorite patterned ware." Willow Ware is available in a wide range of patterns makers-most identifiable by mark styles and periods-running from 1780 to wares produced today."
Bluefish Caves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Caves discovered in 1975 in the northern Yukon, Canada, which may be the oldest archaeological site in North America. There are deposits of the late glacial period and some artifacts associated with woolly mammoth, Dall sheep, reindeer, and other vertebrates. The radiocarbon dates of bone fragments range from 25,000-12,000 bp. Evidence of human occupation is from at least 13,000-10,000 bp. There was a wedge-shaped microcore, microblades, and burins similar to those from Siberia of the same time. The lowest levels of 20,000 bp have debitage flakes and large numbers of cut and butchered animal bones.
Boat-ax culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boat-axe culture, Boat Axe culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture of eastern Scandinavia found in the late Neolithic Period, c 2000 BC, that was an outlier of the European Battle-Ax cultures. This single-grave culture spread rapidly through Sweden, Finland, and the Danish islands. The people displayed the aspects of a homogeneous culture, with central European trade links. Its characteristic weapon is a slender stone battle-ax shaped like a simple boat with upturned ends. The term 'Boat-ax culture' is sometimes used for the east Scandinavian variant of the Single Grave or Corded Ware culture in which these axes occur.
boat-shaped buildings: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, there is evidence of a variety of longhouse with bowed sides during the Viking period. The finest examples have been excavated at 11th-century Viking camps such as Trelleborg in southern Jutland. A reconstructed example there has walls made of halved tree trunks set in rows, with the curved face outwards as in stave churches. A series of angled posts around the outside acted as buttresses and gave additional support to the gabled roof with its curved ridge. The roof may have been covered in wooden shingles, thatch, or turf. There is considerable variation in boat-shaped houses, depending on function and location. Two British examples are a boat-shaped building in Hamwih and another in Bucken.
boatmaking: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Boatmaking and navigation has been important to man for thousands of years -- for communication, transport, and fishing. There is much evidence of dugout canoes from Mesolithic times onward, the earliest being at Perth and in Denmark. Neolithic people used skiffs as well as dugout canoes. Plank boats appeared in the Middle Bronze Age. In the Roman period, boats started being made with nails. Seagoing vessels existed, but there is not much evidence except for skin boats, like the Irish curragh. Classical writers describe plank-built boats with sails of leather on the Atlantic before the Romans arrived. Full documentation begins only with the Vikings. The Americas have yielded two regional pre-conquest types of craft: the reed caballitos of the Peruvian coast and Lake Titicaca, and the seagoing balsa rafts from the Gulf of Guayaquil. The oldest boat in Europe was found on the Tay. It is a dugout canoe used by Maglemosian immigrants from Denmark 10,000 years ago.
Bologna: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bononia; Felsina
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in the Po valley of northern Italy, originally the Etruscan Felsina, which was occupied by Gauls in the 4th century BC and became a Roman colony and municipium (Bononia) c 190 BC. Traces of street plans survive, as do cemeteries with trench-type inhumation and cremation. Finds include sandstone grave stelae and many grave goods. Prior to the Etruscan inhabitation, there were villages of the Apennine culture, which were succeeded by Villanovans. During that time it was a bronzeworking and trade center. It was then subject to the Greeks, then the papacy, then occupied by the Visigoths, Huns, Goths, and Lombards after the barbarian invasions. After a feudal period, Bologna became free in the early 12th century.
Bonampak: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bonompak
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small, Late Classic Period (c 800 AD) Maya site and ceremonial center in Chiapas, a satellite of Yaxchilán located on a tributary of the Usumacinta. The discovery in 1946 of the magnificent murals in the rooms of an otherwise modest structure astounded the archaeological world. From the floors to vault capstones, its stuccoed walls were covered with highly realistic polychrome scenes of a jungle battle, the arraignment of prisoners, and victory ceremonies. These shed an entirely new light on the nature of Maya society, which up until then had been considered peaceful. These murals are the most complete graphic portrayal of Maya life known. Hieroglyphs also occur frequently and the whole collection is seen as a continuous narrative.
Bone Age: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A loosely defined prehistoric period of human culture characterized by the use of implements made of bone and antler; not part of the Three Age System.
Boreal: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boreal Climatic Interval
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A climatic subdivision of the Holocene epoch, following the Pre-Boreal and preceding the Atlantic climatic intervals. Radiocarbon dating shows the period beginning about 9,500 years ago and ending about 7,500 years ago. The Boreal was supposed to be warm and dry. In Europe, the Early Boreal was characterized by hazel-pine forest assemblages and lowering sea levels. In the Late Boreal, hazel-oak forest assemblages were dominant, but the seas were rising. In some areas, notably the North York moors, southern Pennines and lowland heaths, Mesolithic man appears to have been responsible for temporary clearances by fire and initiated the growth of moor and heath vegetation.
Borneo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The largest island of Southeast Asia, first mentioned in Ptolemy's Guide to Geography" of c 150 AD. Joined to mainland Southeast Asia during the low sea-level Pleistocene period archaeological sequences have been found in the Niah Caves of Sarawak and the Madai-Tingkayu region of Sabah. The Niah Great Cave sequence suggests the presence of a population of early Australoids from about 40 000 years ago and evidence from all sites indicate that the ancestors of present-day Borneans arrived around 3000 BC possibly from the Philippines. Though traces of Homo erectus from 2 million years ago were found on neighboring Java so far no evidence has been found of Homo erectus in Borneo. Roman trade beads and Indo-Javanese artifacts give evidence of a flourishing civilization dating to the 2nd or 3rd century BC. A Sanskrit inscription dated to c 400 AD is the earliest historical document on the island. Three rough foundation stones with an inscription recording a gift to a Brahman priest date from the early 5th century AD found at Kutai provide evidence of a Hindu kingdom. The first recorded European visitor was Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone who visited on his way from India to China in 1330."
boshanlu: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Chinese incense burner (lu) with a lid designed to represent mountain peaks, such as Boshan, a mountain in Shangdong province. They are stemmed bowls of pottery or bronze with a perforated conical lid. Most examples date from the western Han period. One from the tomb of Liu sheng (d.113 BC) at Mancheng, is inlaid with gold.
Boucher (de Crèvecoeur) de Perthes, Jacques (1788-1868): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boucher de Perthes
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French archaeologist and writer who was the first to develop the idea that prehistory could be measured on the basis of periods of geological time. In 1837, in the Somme Valley, he discovered flint hand axes and other stone tools along with the bones of extinct mammals in deposits of the Pleistocene Epoch (or Ice Age, ending about 10,000 years ago). Boucher de Perthes was the first to draw attention to the Stone Age's revolutionary significance, because at the time, 4004 BC was still believed to be the year of the creation. His claims that these objects were the tools of ancient man and that they occurred in association with the bones of extinct animals were ridiculed. In 1859, Boucher de Perthes's conclusions were finally upheld by a group of eminent British scientists, including Charles Lyell, Hugh Falconer, John Preswich, and John Evans, who visited the excavated sites. His archaeological writings include De la Création: essai sur l'origine et la progression des êtres" (1838-41) and "Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes" (1847-64)."
boulder clay: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A clayey deposit of the Ice Age which contains boulders. Also, the clay of the Glacial or Drift period.
Brørup interstadial.: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: An interstadial of the Weichselian cold period, radiocarbon dated to between 63,000 and 61,000 bp, but it may be earlier.
Brak, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Brak, Tall Birak at-Tahtani
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell on the upper Khabur River in Syria which had an Akkadian fortress and garrison and was occupied from at least the Halaf and Ubaid period until the mid-2nd millennium BC. On the Syrian-Iraqi border, it was a powerful fortress on the imperial line of communication and its most important remains are the four 'Eye Temples' of the Jemdet Nasr period, c 3000 BC. They are so-called for the large number of small, flat alabaster figurines of which the eyes are the only recognizable features. Eye temples were decorated with clay cones, copper panels, and gold work, in a style very similar to that found in the contemporary temples of Sumer. Halaf, Ubaid, and Uruk sherds have been found. When the site became a frontier post of the kingdom of Akkad, a palace was built by Naram-Sin c 2280 BC, and it became a depot for the storage of tribute and loot. The city was plundered after the fall of the Akkadian empire, but the palace was rebuilt in the Ur III period by Ur Nammu. A Roman fort was built there later.
Breasted, James Henry (1865-1935): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American Egyptologist, archaeologist, and historian who excavated Megiddo (Armageddon), established ancient Egyptian historical periods, and founded University of Chicago's Oriental Institute (1919). Breasted promoted research on ancient Egypt and the ancient civilizations of western Asia as well as compiled a record of every known Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription and published a translation of these in a five-volume work, Ancient Records of Egypt" (1906). He led expeditions to Egypt and the Sudan (1905-1907) and copied inscriptions from monuments that had been previously inaccessible or were perishing. The Oriental Institute is a renowned center for the study of the ancient cultures of southwest Asia and the Middle East. His other books included "History of Egypt" (1905) and "Ancient Times" (1916) and "Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt" (1912). His excavation at Megiddo uncovered a large riding stable thought to have been King Solomon's and one at Persepolis yielded some Achaemenid sculptures."
Breuil, Abbé Henri (1877-1961): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Breuil, Henri-Édouard-Prosper
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A French archaeologist who was regarded as an authority on prehistoric cave paintings of Europe and Africa. He devoted much of his life to studying examples of prehistoric art in southern France, northern Spain, and southern Africa. Breuil was a fine draftsman, and his greatest contributions were in the recording and interpretation of cave art in more than 600 publications. He proposed a series of four successive art styles, based on the superposition of paintings found in many caves, and held the view that the purpose of the paintings was sympathetic magic, to ensure success in hunting. Breuil fit the Aurignacian culture into its right place within the French Palaeolithic sequence and was responsible for working out the chronologies of French Upper and Middle Paleolithic periods.
Brongniart, Alexandre (1770-1847): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French mineralogist, geologist, and naturalist, who first arranged the geologic formations of the Tertiary Period (from 66.4-1.6 million years ago) in chronological order and described them. Brongniart helped introduce the principle of geologic dating by the identification of distinctive fossils found in each geological stratum.
Bronze Age: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The second age of the Three Age System, beginning about 4000-3000 BC in the Mideast and about 2000-1500 BC in Europe. It followed the Stone Age and preceded the Iron Age and was defined by a shift from stone tools and weapons to the use of bronze. During this time civilization based on agriculture and urban life developed. Trading to obtain tin for making bronze led to the rapid diffusion of ideas and technological improvements. The Iron Age began about 1500 BC in the Mideast and 900 BC in Europe. Bronze artifacts were valued highly and became part of many hoards. In the Americas, true bronze was used in northern Argentina before 1000 AD and it spread to Peru and the Incas. Bronze was never as important in the New World as in the Old. The Bronze Age is often divided into three periods: Early Bronze Age (c 4000-2000 BC), Middle Bronze Age (c 2000-1600 BC), and Late Bronze Age (c 1600-1200 BC) but he chronological limits and the terminology vary from region to region.
Bubanj: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bubanj-Hum
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic culture of late 4th to early 3rd millennia BC in the Morava valley of eastern Yugoslavia, close to Nis. The site, on a gravel terrace of a river, was first excavated in the 1950s and the culture is derived from the Vinca and closely related to Salcuta in Romania. The main periods recognized include the early Neolithic Starcevo with graphite painted ware and Vinca-like dark burnished ware; a phase of Baden pottery; and an Early Bronze Age occupation.
Buchau: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Wasserburg Buchau
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Bronze Age settlement site in southern Germany with two Urnfield period occupations. There were single-room buildings and a larger two-roomed building in one occupation; the second settlement had nine complexes of large multi-room houses with outbuildings.
bucket urn: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of large middle Bronze Age pot found within the overall repertoire of the Deverel-Rimbury ceramic tradition of southern Britain in the period 1500 BC through to 1200 BC. Usually over 60cm high, bucket urns are shaped like modern buckets with straight slightly sloping sides, wider at the top than the bottom. They are fairly plain with occasional applied cordons decorated with finger-tip impressions. Found on domestic sites where they were presumably used as storage vessels and as containers for cremations they are often found as secondary burials in earlier round barrows.
burial mound: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A large artificial hill of earth and stones built or placed over the remains of the dead at the time of burial. In England the equivalent term is barrow; in Scotland, cairn; and in Europe and elsewhere, tumulus. In western Europe and the British Isles, burial cairns and barrows date primarily from the Neolithic Period and Early Bronze Age (4000 BC-600 AD).
burial population: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A set of human burials from a limited region and time period
buried soil: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: paleosol
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Any ancient land surface buried and undisturbed under a structure or within a deposit, such as peat. Buried soil reflects the nature of the soil, at least at a very local level, at the time the structure was erected or the natural deposit laid down. Buried soil may be analyzed for faunal, insect, molluscan, and pollen remains which would give information about the environment of the period. Such soils are frequently preserved under barrows, mounds, or ramparts, or buried within the fill of a ditch.
Butmir: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic settlement near Sarajevo in Bosnia which gave its name to a culture, though the type site is not characteristic of the entire Butmir culture. The site represents a classic or late phase, defined by richly decorated ceramics (with incised meander designs) and a wide range of fired clay anthropomorphic figurines of various physical types, costume, and pathological condition. The culture was related to the Vinca culture. The Butmir culture comprises the Middle and Late Neolithic of central Bosnia, in the period c 4350-3700 BC.
Byblos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Gebeil, Gubla, Jubeil, Gebail, Jubayl, Jebeil; ancient/biblical Gebal; adjective Jiblite (Kubna, ancient Egyptian; Gubla, Akkadian)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient seaport on the Mediterranean coast just north of Beirut, Lebanon and one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world. Papyrus received its early Greek name (byblos, byblinos) from its being exported to the Aegean through Byblos. The English word Bible is derived from byblos as the (papyrus) book." Excavations revealed that Byblos was occupied at least by the Neolithic period (c 8000-4000 BC) and that an extensive settlement developed during the 4th millennium BC. Byblos was the main harbor for exporting cedar and other valuable wood to Egypt from 3000 BC on. Egyptian monuments and inscriptions on the site describe to close relations with the Nile valley throughout the second half of the 2nd millennium. During Egypt's 12th dynasty (1938-1756 BC) Byblos became an Egyptian dependency and the chief goddess of the city Baalat with her well-known temple at Byblos was worshipped in Egypt. After the collapse of the Egyptian New Kingdom in the 11th century BC Byblos became the most important city of Phoenicia. Byblos has yielded almost all of the known early Phoenician inscriptions most of them dating from the 10th century BC. The crusaders captured the town in 1103 but they later lost it to the Ayyubids in 1189. The ruins today consist of the crusader ramparts and gate; a Roman colonnade and small theater; Phoenician ramparts three major temples and a necropolis."
Byzantine empire: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul)
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The eastern half of the Roman Empire, based in Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul), an ancient Greek settlement on the European side of the Bosporus. It was inaugurated in AD 330 by the Emperor Constantine I who transferred the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium. The empire survived the collapse of the Western empire until overrun by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Originally a Greek colony at the entrance to the Black Sea, a typical Roman town was then laid out over it. Remains of the imperial palace lie south of the former Greek city nucleus. The land walls, giving the city an area greater than that of Rome, were built by Theodosius II (408-450 AD) and are among the best-preserved ancient fortifications anywhere. In the 7th century BC Dorian Greeks founded the settlement of Byzantium on a trapezoidal promontory on the European side of the Bosporus channel which leads from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and separates Europe from Asia. Septimus Severus (193-211 AD) was responsible for restoring the city, re-walling it and beginning the construction of the limestone racecourse, the Hippodrome. In 368 AD, Valens raised his still impressive aqueduct. In 413 Theodosius II built the colossal surviving walls of stone and brick-faced concrete, with 96 variously shaped towers, and the principal entrance at the Golden Gate. The Eastern Christian empire preserved much of Greek and Roman culture and introduced eastern ideas to the west. Byzantium was essentially a Christian church state, preserving its religion against the onslaught of Islam, despite the Arab encroachments on Palestine, Syria, and northern Africa during the 6th-7th centuries AD. The Byzantine period is the time, about the 6th-12th centuries AD, when its style of architecture and art developed. Byzantine architecture is noted for its Christian places of worship and introduced the cupola, or dome, an almost square ground plan in place of the long aisles of the Roman church, and piers instead of columns. The apse always formed part of Byzantine buildings, which were richly decorated, and contained much marble. St. Sophia (532-537), St. Mark's (Venice, 977) and the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle (796-804) are of pure Byzantine style. Byzantine painting preceded and foreshadowed the Renaissance of art in Italy. Mosaics are perhaps the supreme achievement of Byzantine art.
Caballo Muerto: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A complex of monuments of the Initial Period and Early Horizon on the north coast of Peru. There are 17 mounds on the Moche Valley site, with the most complex structure at Huaca de los Reyes. It is a multi-level, U-shaped complex decorated with relief friezes, which inside is a series of structures, stairways, pillared halls, and a courtyard.
cacao: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: The tropical American tree and its fruit from which cocoa and chocolate are made. Chocolate was the favored drink of the nobility of many Mesoamerican cultures. It grows in only in tropical lowlands was therefore considered a luxury item by the Aztec and Maya. Depictions on Izapan sculpture give its first use as the Pre-Classic period. The Codex Mendoza indicates that the beans were a medium of exchange and tribute in Aztec times. Cocoa beans were taken to Europe in the 16th century, where cocoa and chocolate were developed.
Cahuachi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large ceremonial site that was the principal center of the Nasca culture of Peru. There are 40 adobe mounds, likely to have been used only for religious ceremonies. It was built in Early Nasca periods but was used through Late Nasca and the Middle Horizon.
Cairo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arabic Al-Qahirah
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of modern Egypt, which has more than 400 registered historical monuments -- the largest number of any African or Middle Eastern city -- dating from 130 AD. The ancient metropolis has stood for more than 1,000 years on the same site. The Pyramids of Giza stand at the southwestern edge of the Cairo metropolis. The Egyptian (National) Museum is in Cairo which specializes in antiquities of the Pharaonic and Greco-Roman periods. It contains more than 100,000 items, including some 1,700 items from the tomb of Tutankhamen, including the solid-gold mask that covered the pharaoh's head. Other treasures include reliefs, sarcophaguses, papyri, funerary art and the contents of various tombs, jewelry, ornaments of all kinds, and other objects.
Cajamarca: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Cajamarquilla
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Inca city, the site of the capture, ransom, and execution of the Inca chief Atahuallpa by conquistador Francisco Pizarro in 1532. In the north Peruvian highlands, Cajamarca developed a strong regional civilization and was a provincial capital, flourishing between 200-1476 AD. Cajamarca pottery is slip-painted with linear running patterns (cursive) or with stylized creatures and animal heads in brownish black over a cream background. The Spanish capture ended the Inca period and Andean prehistory. It was a cultural center during the Early Intermediate period. The cemetery, Nievería has Huari-related artifacts.
calendar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: calendrics
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A cyclical system of measuring the passage of time. The day is the fundamental unit of computation in any calendar. Most ancient civilizations (and perhaps some non-literate prehistoric societies) developed calendrical systems to mark the passage of time and various methods have been employed by different peoples. Where these were both carefully calculated and written down, as in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica, they are of considerable assistance to archaeologists for dating purposes. In the Americas, the origins of calendrics are still obscure, but evidence from Monte Albán suggests that the 52-year Calendar Round was known by the 6th century BC. The Long Count system was in use by c 1st century BC if not before. Ancient Near Eastern calendars varied from city to city and from period to period. In most cities the year started in the spring and was divided into 12 or 13 months. In some places the months were of fixed length; in others they were lunar months starting at the first sighting of the crescent of the new moon. As there are more than 12 lunar months in a solar year additional, or intercalary, months were included so that every third year contained 13 months. The earliest Egyptian calendars were based on lunar observations combined with the annual cycle of the Nile inundation, measured with nilometers. On this basis, the Egyptians divided the year into 12 months and three seasons: akhet (inundation), peret (spring/ crops), and shemu (harvest). The Egyptians had 30-day months and 5 intercalary days in their solar or civil calendar. For agricultural purposes and for determining religious festivals, they used a different calendar based on observations of Sirius, the dog star. The calendar in use in ancient Mesopotamia and the Levant was lunar, based on 12 months of 30 days each. This produced a year of only 354 days, about 11-1/4 days short of the true solar year; the necessary correction was made by the addition of seven months over a period of 19 years. This type of calendar is still used in both Judaism and Islam for religious purposes, though many countries now also employ the Gregorian solar calendar for secular purposes. The origin of the calendric system in general use today -- the Gregorian calendar -- can be traced back to the Roman republican calendar, which is thought to have been introduced by the fifth king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus (616-579 BC). This calendar was likely derived from an earlier Roman calendar -- a lunar system of 10 months -- that was supposedly devised about 738 BC by Romulus, the founder of Rome. In the year 46 BC, Julius Caesar corrected the calendar by having a year of 445 days (known as the ultimus annus confusionis' or 'the last year of the muddled reckoning'). He then adapted the Egyptian solar calendar for Roman use, inserting extra days in the shorter months to bring the total up to 365, with the addition of a single day between the 23rd and 24th February in leap years. This calendar, known as the Julian Calendar, remained in use until the time of Gregory XIII in 1582, who made a further correction (of eleven days) and instituted the calendar which is in general use today. Very useful to Mesoamerican archaeologists is the Maya Long Count or Initial Series, which was a means of recording absolute time. Its starting date of 3113 BC (using the Goodman-Thompson-Martinex correlation) marks some mythical event in Maya history and itself stands at the beginning of a cycle 13 Baktuns long. A Baktun at 144,000 days in the largest unit of time in the calendar and is further divided into smaller units: the Katun (7200 days); the Tun (360 days); the Uninal (20 days) and the Kin (a single days). Thus Long Count dates are expressed in terms of these units in a five place notation. Therefore the date 9.18.0.0.0. indicates the passage of 9 x 144,000 plus 18 x 7200 days since the initial date of 3113 BC. In cultural contexts, however, the dates are inscribed as a series of hieroglyphs which incorporate numeration via bars (units of five) and dots (units of one). Short count dating replaced the Long Count after 900 AD and the Katun replaced the Baktun as the largest unit. It is less precise, however.
Cambodia: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kampuchea
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Neolithic peoples inhabited present-day Cambodia during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. Stone tools have been found in terraces of the Mekong River in possible association with tektites from a shower that fell c 600,000 to 700,000 years ago. In western Cambodia there is an important Hoabinhian sequence from the cave of Laang Spean dating to 4300 BC. A major Neolithic mound site at Somrong Sen yielded elaborate assemblage which seems to predate 100 BC. Khmer civilization developed over several distinct periods, starting with the Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms of Funan and Chenla in the 1st century AD, which extended into the 8th century.
Can Hasan: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a number of tells in southern Turkey. Can Hasan III was an aceramic Neolithic settlement c 6500 BC. There were at least seven structural phases, with dark burnished pottery in several levels and painted pottery in one. The villagers were agriculturists, growing einkorn and emmer, lentil, and vetch in the earlier phases. The main Can Hasan mound was occupied in the late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods.
Capsian and Capsian Neolithic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Capsian industry
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mesolithic/Stone Age (8000 BC-2700 BC) cultural complex prominent in inland northern Africa near the present border between Tunisia and Algeria. Its shell midden sites are in the area of the great salt lakes of what is now southern Tunisia, the type site being Jabal al-Maqta'. The tool kit of the Capsian is a classic example of the industries of the late Würm Glacial Period and it is apparently related to the Gravettian stage of Europe's Perigordian industry (which dates from about 17,000 years ago). However, it occurs in Neothermal (postglacial) times and, like its predecessor, the Ibero-Maurusian industry (Oranian industry), the Capsian was a microlithic tool complex. It differed from the Ibero-Maurusian, however, in having a far more varied tool kit with large backed blades, scrapers, backed bladelets, microburins, and burins in its earlier phase and a gradual development of geometric microliths later. These became its leading feature by the 6th millennium BC. Shortly after 5000 BC, pottery and domesticated animals were introduced. Some North African rock paintings are attributed to people of the Capsian industry. The Capsian Neolithic, with pointed-base pottery and a stone industry, lasted from c 6200-5300 BP, in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria and the northern Sahara. The name derives from Capsa, the Latin form of Gafsa, a town in south central Tunisia where such artifacts were first discovered. Hunting and snail-collecting seem to have formed the basis of the economy. Human remains from Capsian sites are mostly of Mechta-Afalou type.
Capua: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Santa Maria di Capua Vetere; Casilinum
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city of Italy, founded around 600 BC by the Etruscans, whose people spoke the Oscan dialect of Italic. There had been an early Iron Age settlement in the 9th century BC. After the period of Etruscan domination, it fell to the Samnites c 440 BC. Capua supported the Latin Confederacy in its war against Rome in 340 BC. After Rome's victory in the war, Capua became a self-governing community, and its people were granted limited Roman citizenship. In 312 BC, Capua was connected with Rome by the Appian Way and its prosperity increased to make it the secondmost important in Italy. During the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) Capua sided with Carthage against Rome. When the Romans recaptured the city in 211 BC, they deprived the citizens of political rights. Spartacus, the slave leader, began his revolt at Capua in 73 BC. Although it suffered during the Roman civil wars in the last decades of the republic, it prospered under the empire until 27 BC. The Vandals sacked Capua in 456 AD and Muslim invaders destroyed everything except the church of Sta. Maria in 840. Capua was famous for its bronzes and perfumes. There are ruins of a theater, amphitheater, baths, ceremonial arch of Hadrian, and a mithraeum with painted frescoes. The Etruscan artifacts include characteristic pottery, bronzes, and tombs, and an important document of the Etruscan language -- the Capua Tile, an inscription of some 62 lines that was either religious or ritual text.
Carchemish: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Europus
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city-state near modern Jarabulus, Syria. The site was a strategic crossing at the Euphrates River for caravans in Syrian, Mesopotamian, and Anatolian trade. The great tell of Carchemish was excavated by David G. Hogarth and later by Sir Leonard Woolley and was first occupied in the Neolithic Period. Halaf ware from the Chalcolithic (5th millennium BC) was found as well as later finds of Uruk-Jamdat Nasr pottery, a product of the southern Euphrates Valley in Sumerian cities of c 3000 BC. There were also tombs from the end of the Early Bronze (c 2300 BC) and the Middle and Late Bronze Age (c 2300-1550; c 1550-1200 BC). Written records concerning Carchemish first appear in the Mari letters -- royal archives of Mari, c 18th century BC. At that time the city was a center for trading wood and shipped Anatolian timber down the Euphrates. The large fortified citadel was important under the empire of the Hittites (14th century BC) and remained so after the fall of the empire, during the period of Syro-Hittite city-states (12th-8th centuries BC). The monumental city gates, temples, and palaces all bore considerable numbers of carved reliefs and inscriptions of the period. The Hittite hieroglyphic inscriptions were of great importance in helping to piece together its history down to its annexation by Assyria in 716 BC.
Carolingian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term referring to the time and place of Charlemagne (Charles the Great), who called himself the king of the Franks and Lombards" from 768-814 AD. In an archaeological and architectural sense Carolingian describes the period c 750-900 AD. The Carolingian kingdom of Italy occupied the northern and central peninsula down to Rome except for Venice and Benevento. The cultural revival of the Carolingian period stimulated by Charlemagne was a renovation and renaissance of the arts and education."
carrying capacity: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The maximum population of a species that can be supported by a particular habitat or area with the food potentially available to it from the resources of the area, including the most unfavorable period of the year. The carrying capacity is different for each species within a habitat because of the species' particular requirements for food, shelter, and social contact and because of competition with other species that have similar requirements. Studies of both human and animal groups suggest that few populations reach such a theoretical maximum level, but adjust themselves to a size which allows a margin for fluctuations in the actual food production in the area. In archaeological terms, carrying capacity is the size and density of ancient populations that a given site or region could have supported under a specified subsistence technology.
Casas Grandes: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A culture, river, and site in Chihuahua, northern Mexico. The town's name, Spanish for great houses refers to the extensive, multistoried ruins of a pre-Columbian town, which was probably founded in 1050 and burned around 1340, after which the abandoned valley lands were occupied by the Suma, who migrated in from the east. Ruins of this type are common in the valleys of the Casas Grandes and its tributaries. The earliest culture, also called the Viejo, was characterized by Mogollon-type pottery and pithouse dwellings. The following period, the Medio, had adobe houses. A third period, the Tardio, came after 1300 AD and was heavily influenced by Mesoamerica. The area was settled by the Spaniards in 1661/1662 and is now a national monument under the jurisdiction of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.
causewayed camp: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A hilltop entrenchment characteristic of Neolithic times, 4th millennium BC, especially in southern Britain. The hilltop was enclosed by a series of concentric ditches, 1-4 in number, with internal banks and which were not continuous but interrupted by solid causeways (undisturbed lanes of earth). Pottery, animal bones, and domestic garbage stratified within the ditches show that the camps were used during the entire Neolithic period. A common theory about the camps' use is as meeting places used at intervals by the population of a wide area.
cave dwelling: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: n. cave-dweller or cave-man
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: Natural prehistoric living places inside caves or rock shelters, often inhabited by Palaeolithic man. Cave dwelling were inhabited more often during colder periods by hunters and gatherers.
Cave of Hearths: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave in northern Transvaal which yielded the right side of a Homo sapiens child's jaw, of Rhodesioid type, dating from about 50,000 years ago. It is located close to the Makapansgat site, the oldest cave site known in Africa. Both offer extremely early evidence of the use of fire by man in Africa and tools of the transitional Acheulian-Fauresmith type. The earliest deposits of the Cave of Hearths are Acheulian, followed by a long period of abandonment. There was a long succession of Pietersburg industries and some signs of typological continuity between the Acheulian and the Pietersburg assemblages. The Pietersburg industry was succeeded by an assemblage of subtriangular points and flake scrapers similar to the Bambata industry of Zimbabwe.
Cenozoic: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The most recent geological era in the earth's history, in which mammals came to dominate animal life. The Cenozoic was 66.4 million years ago to the present and began when Asia acquired its present appearance and mammals came to dominate animal life. The most important tectonic event in the Cenozoic history of Asia was its collision with India some 50 million years ago. This collision took place some 1,250 miles farther south of the present location of the line of collision along the Indus-Brahmaputra suture behind the main range of the Himalayas. The Cenozoic includes the Tertiary and Quaternary periods and began about 70 million years ago.
Cerro de las Mesas: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Veracruz, Mexico, in the plains of the Papaloápan River that is a hybrid site of Pre-Classic and Classic periods. Dozens of earthen mounds are scattered over the surface in a seemingly haphazard manner, and the archaeological sequence is long and complex. The site reached its apogee in the Early Classic, when the stone monuments for which it is best known were carved. Most important are a number of stelae, some of which are carved in a low-relief style recalling Late Formative Tres Zapotes, early lowland Maya, and Cotzumalhuapa. Cerro de las Mesas pottery, deposited in rich burial offerings of the Early Classic, is much like that of Teotihuacan, with slab-legged tripods. Potters made large, hollow, handmade figures of the gods and the most spectacular discovery on the site was a cache of 782 jade objects, many of Olmec workmanship. Cerro de las Mesas is famous for Remojadas-style pottery figurines, found in great quantity as burial goods. Because the Classic occupation contains abundant Teotihuacan materials and two Maya Long Count dates (ad 468 and ad 533), it is usually interpreted as a redistribution point for materials from both Mexico and the Maya lowlands.
Cerro Sechin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A pre-Columbian temple site in the Casma Valley on the north-central coast of Peru, dating to c 1800-900 BC (Initial Period, pre-Chavín) and known for its unusual large stone sculptures. These carvings are in a style unlike anything else reported in Peru, executed by deep-line incisions of warriors and dignitaries in regalia on dressed and carved stone slabs. Most of the figures represent humans. The site has one of the earliest appearances of monumental art in Mesoamerica.
Cerveteri: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Caere; Roman Caere vetus, Etruscan Xaire, Greek Agylla
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the most important cities in Italy, north of Roman, whose earliest occupation was the Iron Age Villanovan of the 9th-8th centuries BC. It flourished from the 7th-5th centuries as one of the 12 major cities of the Etruscan federation. Two necropoleis from this period have been identified, with evidence for pit, trench, and chamber tombs. Accumulating wealth is reflected in the grandeur of many surviving tombs. There were two ports, Pyrgi and Alsium, the former with evidence of temples, which have provided scholars of the Etruscan language an important pieces of evidence -- a text on gold laminae. The city lost importance during the Roman period, and by the early Empire was reported to be no more than a village.
Ch'ang-An: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ch'ang-an, Chang'an
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient site in China that was formerly the capital of the Han, Sui, and T'ang dynasties, located near the modern city of Sian. It was first used by western Chou Dynasty (1027-771 BC). Han-yuan Palace contains the tombs of T'ang imperial family. In the T'ang period, Ch'ang-An was the eastern terminus of the Silk Route and one of the world's great cities. The site of the Qin capital Xianyang is near Xi'an, and the Western Zhou capitals Feng and Hao are supposed to have been in this area as well, possibly lying within the boundaries of the modern Ch'ang-An district southwest of Xi'an.
Ch'un-ch'iu: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Chun Qiu
CATEGORY: chronology; language
DEFINITION: A term for the Spring and Autumn Period, 772-479 BC. It also refers to the Spring and Autumn [Annals]" the first Chinese chronological history said to be the traditional history of Lu as revised by Confucius. It is one of the Five Classics of Confucianism. The name which is actually an abbreviation of "Spring Summer Autumn Winter derives from the custom of dating events by season as well as by year. The work is a complete account of significant events that occurred during the reign of 12 rulers of Lu, the native state of Confucius. The account begins in 722 BC and ends shortly before Confucius' death (479 BC). It is interpreted by Confucian scholars in their commentaries.
Chün ware: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Jun
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A Chinese stoneware of the Northern Sung period (960-1126 AD) with a pale blue opalescent or translucent green glaze, at the kilns near Lin-ju-hsien and at Kung-hsien in Honan province in China. Another well-known class has a red or flambé glaze and consists of flowerpots, bulb bowls, elegant shallow dishes, waterpots, and small boxes.
chacmool: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: chac mool
CATEGORY: artifact; lithics
DEFINITION: A Mesoamerican life-sized sculpted stone figure representing a reclining human with head turned to one side, knees drawn up, and hands holding a shallow receptacle flat on the stomach. This was a widespread art form in the Post-Classic Period, especially at the Toltec sites of Tula and Chichen Itza and at Aztec and Tarascan sites. It is located at the entranceway to temples and was probably a repository for offerings.
Chaco Canyon: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An alluvium-filled 20-km stretch of canyon in northwest New Mexico, occupied by the Anasazi during Pueblo I and II, c 850-1150 AD. Now a national park, it contained spectacular pueblos, including Pueblo Bonito (c 919-1130) which housed some 1,200 people. There were at least a dozen pueblo-like towns and hundreds of small villages. During a period of increased rainfall between 950-1150, several other pueblos were constructed in the Canyon, with fields, irrigation canals, an elaborate road system, and signal stations for long-distance trade. The entire complex of ruins has been studied with the aid of photogrammetry, including infrared air photography, satellite photographs, image enhancement, and computer mapping. When the climate started to become dryer, in c 1150, the main occupation of Chaco Canyon ended.
Chagar Bazar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tell Chagar Bazar
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site on a tributary of the River Khabur in northeast Syria with levels from the 5th millennium BC (Halaf period) to the mid-2nd millennium BC. It gradually grew in size and importance and during the reign of the Assyrian king, Shamsi Adad I (early 2nd millennium BC) and was an administrative center. Excavated by Sir Max Mallowan from 1935-37, it yielded an important sequence of prehistoric wares, particularly Halaf and Samarra. There was iron (from the 28th c BC) and copper, too.
chain mail: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mail
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of protective body armor in the form of interlinked metal rings, worn by European knights and other military men throughout most of the medieval period. An early form of mail, made by sewing iron rings to fabric or leather, was worn in late Roman times and may have originated in Asia, where it was worn for many centuries.
chamber tomb: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: chambered tomb
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A prehistoric tomb, often megalithic in construction, that contained a large burial chamber. Such a vault was usually used for successive burials over a long period of time. The term is also used for a rock-cut tomb, especially the shaft-and-chamber tomb, with a similar burial rite. Chamber tombs were built in many parts of the world and at many different times. The European varieties were called court cairn, dolmen, entrance grave, gallery grave, giants' grave, hunebed, passage grave, portal dolmen, tholos, transepted gallery grave, and wedge-shaped gallery grave. Many were rectangular chambers cut into the side of a hill and approached by a long entrance passage (dromos), especially in the Aegean.
champlevé: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: champ-levé
CATEGORY: artifact; ceramics
DEFINITION: An enameling technique or an object made by the process, a form of inlay in which the pattern is cut out of the metal to be ornamented. The pattern was then filled with enamel frit and fused in an oven, or with polished stones or shells. Champlevé can be distinguished from the similar technique of cloisonné by a greater irregularity in the width of the metal lines. It developed as a Celtic art in western Europe in the Roman period and was copied by the Anglo-Saxons. In the Rhine River valley and in Belgium's Meuse River valley, champlevé production flourished especially during the late 11th and 12th centuries. It was often used in the decoration of the escutcheons on hanging bowls.
Chancay: CATEGORY: ceramics; culture
DEFINITION: In central Peru, a distinctive type of pottery made by the Chancay people between 1000-1500 AD (from Late Intermediate Period). It is black-on-white with parallel or checkered design, sometimes with biomorphic figures or painted in soft colors. The most common forms were tall, two-handled, egg-shaped collared jars; bowls and beakers with slightly bowed sides; and large figurines. The pottery is associated with large effigy figurines, dolls, and lacelike textiles. Chancay weaving was considered excellent.
Chang'an: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ch'ang-an
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of both the early Han and Tang dynasties of China, both walled cities which are located adjacent to each other. There was a grid street layout and gate wall enclosure in the Tang period. The royal palace was positioned in the north for the first time and Chang'an became the model for urban development in 7th century AD Japan and Korea.
Charentian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic) culture of at least two types, Quina and Ferrassie, of the Charente region of France. Dominance racloirs (side scrapers), Quina retouch, and handaxes have been found. The Charentian seems to originate in the penultimate glacial period, and has a distribution across Europe and Russia.
chariot: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A light vehicle of war, usually carrying two people, a warrior, and a driver. Examples have been found from the Uruk period in Mesopotamia and the chariot was on the standard of Ur. It first appeared in the Near East in the 17 century BC, associated with the immigrant peoples who became the Hyksos, Kassites, and Hurri. Its arrival in Egypt can be fairly reliably dated to the Second Intermediate Period (1650-1550 BC). The Aryans carried it to India, and in China it formed the core of the Shang army. The Mycenaeans introduced it to Europe, where it spread widely and rapidly. It revolutionized warfare by allowing warriors to be transferred rapidly from one part of a battlefield to another. It was mainly for aristocrats, which explains its popularity as a funeral offering. Burials of complete chariots with horses and charioteers have been excavated in Shang China (1200 BC), in Cyprus from the 7th century BC, and among the La Tène Celts. The earliest Celt chariot burials are in the Rhineland and eastern France with dates around 500 BC, and later burials are in east Yorkshire and Europe as far east as Hungary, Bulgaria, and southern Russia. The chariot was replaced by the mounted warrior or knight when horses of sufficient strength had been bred in the late and post-Roman periods.
Chartres: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in northern France which is the site of an important pilgrimage church since the Carolingian period (mid-13th century). Chartres was named after a Celtic tribe, the Canutes, who made it their principal Druidic center. It was attacked several times by the Normans and was burned by them in 858. A series of fires destroyed Notre-Dame, but after 1145 it was reconstructed as one of Europe's greatest Gothic cathedrals.
Chavín de Huántar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Chavín
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The area of the great ruin of the earliest highly developed culture in pre-Columbian Peru, which flourished between about 900 and 200 BC and may have originated c 1200 BC. During this time Chavín art spread over the north and central parts of what is now Peru. It is not known whether this was the actual center of origin of the culture and art style. The central building at Chavín de Huántar is a massive temple complex constructed of dressed rectangular stone blocks, with interior galleries and bas-relief carvings on pillars and lintels. The principal motifs of the Chavín style are human, feline, and crocodilian or serpentine figures. Carved stone objects, fantastic pottery that demonstrates the most advanced skill, stone construction, and remarkably sophisticated goldwork have been found. Chavín pottery is known from the decorated types found in the temple and in graves on the northern coast, where it is called Cupisnique. Until the end of the period, the ware was monochrome -- dull red, brown, or gray -- and stonelike. Vessels were massive and heavy and the main forms are open bowls with vertical or slightly expanding sides and flat or gently rounded bases, flasks, and stirrup-spouted bottles. The surface may be modeled in relief or decorated by incision, stamping, brushing, rouletting, or dentate rocker-stamping. Some bowls have deeply incised designs on both the inside and outside faces. Its art style was never surpassed in the complexity of its iconography. The buildings, which show several periods of reconstruction, consist of various temple platforms containing a series of interlinked galleries and chambers on different levels. In the oldest part of the complex is a granite block, the Lanzón, on which is carved a human figure with feline fangs and with snakes in place of hair. Relief carvings in a similar style decorate the lintels, gateways, and cornices at the site, and human and jaguar heads of stone were on the outside wall of one of the platforms. On the coast, where stone is scarce, the highland architecture is replaced by work in adobe. Further south, the Paracas culture shows strong continuing Chavín influence.
Cheddar ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A regional type of late Saxon pottery (Saxo-Norman pottery) dating to the period AD 850 to AD 1150 manufactured in central Somerset, England.
chekan: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A special kind of striking weapon for hand-to-hand combat. It was most widespread in southern Siberia and in Central Asia in the Scythian period. The chekan is a kind of a battle ax with a thin sharp point, made of bronze. It was fixed onto a long wooden shaft which had a bronze butt at its lower end and was worn at the waist on a special belt. Chekans are quite often decorated with zoomorphic figures in the Scythian-Siberian animal style.
Chelsea sword: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Early type of bronze sword found in southern Britain, having a leaf-shaped blade, flat section, and hilt tang. These were local copies of various imported weapons of Hallstatt A type from mainland Europe by Penard Period smiths.
Chenes: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: One of the three architectural styles of the Lowland Maya area of north-central Yucatan, c 600-1000 AD, overlapping the Classic and Post-Classic periods. Chenes is a flamboyant style of building distinguished from the Rio Bec and Puuc by its concentration on towerless, low, single-story buildings. Maya architects constructed frontal portals surrounded by the jaws of sky serpents and faced entire buildings with a riot of baroquely carved grotesques and spirals. The best example is at Hochob.
Cheng-chou: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Cheng Chou, Chengxian
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the Shang dynasty capital from 1500-1200 BC, in Honan province, China on the Yellow River. Following villages of the Yang Shao and Lung Shan cultures, four phases of Shang occupation have been traced. Cemeteries of pit graves have been found and a rectangular wall enclosed an area divided into different quarters. Outside this city, in addition to remains of large public buildings, a complex of small settlements has been discovered. Since 1950 archaeological finds have shown that there were Neolithic settlements in the area. The site remained occupied after the Shang dynasty moved its capital again; Chou (post-1050 BC) tombs have also been discovered. It is thought that in the Western Chou period (1111-771 BC) it became the fief of a family named Kuan. In 605 AD it was first called Cheng-chu.
Chester-type ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A regional type of late Saxon pottery (Saxo-Norman pottery) dating to the period AD 850 to AD 1150 manufactured in northwest England.
Chichén Itzá: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a ruined ancient Mayan city in south-central Yucatán state, Mexico. Chichén Itzá was founded in about the 6th century AD, presumably by Mayan peoples of the Yucatán Peninsula who had occupied the region since Pre-Classic, or Formative, Period times (1500 BC-AD 300). The only source of water in the region is from wells (Mayan cenotes) formed by the collapse of portions of the limestone formation of the area. Two big cenotes on the site made it a suitable place for the city and gave it its name, from chi (mouths") chen ("wells") and Itzá the name of the tribe that settled there. There are traces of early occupation at the site but the oldest surviving buildings are in the Puuc style of the 8th-early 10th centuries. In the 10th century after the collapse of the Maya cities of the southern lowlands Chichén Itzá was invaded -- probably by the Toltecs. New buildings have their closest parallels at Tula and offerings thrown into the Sacred Cenote or Well of Sacrifice show widespread trade contacts. Chichén Itzá was the dominant power in Yucatan until about 1200 when it was superseded by Mayapán. At the center of the site is the Castillo or temple-Pyramid of Kulkulkan the Maya equivalent of Quetzacóatl; this is linked by a causeway to the nearby Sacred Cenote. Other major structures include the Temple of the Warriors (in front of which stands a Chacmool) large 'dance platforms' the Group of a Thousand Columns the Temple of the Jaguars and the largest Ball Court in Mesoamerica. Bas-relief carvings on a massive skull rack (tzompantli) shows the Ball Game to be associated with scenes of sacrifice. Relief carvings with themes of conquest and violence about and representations of Maya warriors submitting to Toltec warriors have been found on gold discs recovered from the Sacred Cenote."
Chichimec: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A collective name applied to various barbarian tribes who invaded the valley of central Mexico from the northwest from c 7th-13th century AD in periodic waves and migrations. The Aztec, or Mexica, were one of the competing Chichimec tribes. Some of these groups, who may have been farmers, may have entered the Valley of Mexico after the fall of Teotihuacán, and there is a Chicimec constituent in Toltec culture. The Chichimec period proper, however, begins after the destruction of Tula and the decline of Toltec influence in about 1200 AD. In 1224, a band of Náhuatl-speaking Chichimecs entered the northern part of the Valley and established a kingdom at Tenayuca. After their arrival the barbarians settled down again to farming life, became civilized, and were eventually absorbed into the Aztec confederation. In the north, some independent Chichimecs maintained their nomadic and hunting way of life until the Spanish conquest. The Chichimecs are also associated with the introduction of the bow and arrow into the Valley of Mexico. Their language, also called Chichimec, is of the Oto-Pamean language stock.
chief steward: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: steward
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: In Egypt's New Kingdom and Late Period, the title of the administrator of an estate of the temple of a god, the king or his mortuary temple, of a member of the royal family, or even a private individual. Because of the economic importance of the function, chief stewards were very influential. One, Senenmut, combined the offices of Chief Steward of Amun, of Queen Hatshepsut, and of Princess Neferure. He designed and built Queen Hatshepsut's temple near the tomb of Mentuhotep II at Deir al-Bahri. Amenhotpe Huy, the brother of Ramose, was Chief Steward of Memphis in the reign of Amenophis III.
Chilca: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the coastal valley south of modern Lima, Peru, where excavations have revealed settlements dating to the Pre-Ceramic period c 4200 BC. The Chilca Monument was originally a summer camp and later, due to an increasingly warm climate, became favorable for a subsistence pattern called encanto. There are remains of conical huts of cane thatched with sedge. The dead were buried wrapped in twined-sedge mats and the skins of the guanaco. The lomas, patches of vegetation outside the valleys that were watered at that season by fogs, began to dry up. The lomas had provided wild seeds, tubers, and large snails; and deer, guanaco, owls, and foxes were hunted. The camps were eventually abandoned c 2500 BC in favor of permanent fishing villages. Dolichocephalic human remains date to this period but appear ultimately to have been replaced by brachycephalic types some time after 2500 BC.
Chimú: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: South American Indians who created the largest and most important political system in Peru before the Inca, and who developed large-scale irrigation systems. The distinctive pottery of the Chimú aids in dating Andean civilization in the late periods along the north coast of Peru. The black pottery had molded reliefs with some vessels in the shape of people, animals, houses, and everyday items. The stirrup-