Archaeology Wordsmith

archaeology editor/writer providing solutions for busy archaeologists

Results for abri:

abri: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: French word meaning shelter" used to refer to the Palaeolithic shallow rock caves or shelters found in the limestone region of southern France. The abri was the living site in the front of a cave under a shelf of overhanging rock."
Abri Pataud: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site or a rock shelter near the village of Les Eyzies (Dordogne) in the Vézère valley of southwestern France. It has a very rich Upper Palaeolithic sequence of more than 14 main culture layers with radiocarbon dates from c 32,500 BC, beginning with Aurignacian deposits containing saucerlike living hollows with central hearths. The Aurignacian levels are followed by Perigordian and Proto-Magdalenian and probably Proto-Solutrean levels. Art objects have been found and a skeleton in a top layer. The various kinds of hearths and living areas may suggest different social groups inhabiting the area.
Adlun: SYNONYM: Abri Zumoffen
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic site between Sidon and Tyre on the Lebanese coast with evidence of Amudian industry and Jabrudian occupation.
body: SYNONYM: fabric, paste, ware
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Clay or a mixture of clay and inclusions (temper) that is suitable for forming vessels or that has been fired into a vessel
fabric: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: The material of which pottery is composed; the body of processed clay and temper additives in ceramics.
fabricator: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flint implement or piece of stone or bone used in the manufacture of other flint tools. Often rod-shaped and worn heavily on one end, it is used to chip flakes from a stone core.
Mortillet, Gabriel de (1821-1898): SYNONYM: Mortillet, (Louis-Laurent-Marie) Gabriel de
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French prehistorian who, after being a student of Edouard Lartet, proposed an alternative to Lartet's Palaeolithic classification scheme. For the palaeontological criteria of Lartet he substituted archaeological ones based on tool forms rather than faunal remains. He extended into prehistory the geological system of periods, or epochs, each characterized by a limited range of type fossils. Each period had 'type names' after a 'type site' where the diagnostic material was well represented -- such as Mousterian, Aurignacian, and Solutrean. By 1869, de Mortillet's scheme for the Stone Age had the following subdivisions: Thenaisian (for the now discredited eoliths), followed by Chellean, Mousterian, Solutrean, Aurignacian, Magdalenian, and (for the Neolithic) Robenhausian, named after a lake village -- though alterations and additions (Acheulian) were made later. With further modifications, this classification was widely adopted and remained the standard terminology for European archaeology until well into the 20th century. De Mortillet saw his epochs as periods of time or as stages of development with a universal validity, and his scheme was basically a refinement of the Three Age System. He did not allow for purely local variants within a single epoch; he divided the Palaeolithic into time periods, not cultures or traditions. This is no longer accepted and de Mortillet's epochs are now thought to represent cultures and to have local validity only. The practice of using type site names, however, proved so useful that it became standard practice. He founded, in 1864, one of the earliest archaeological journals, Matériaux pour l'Histoire positive et philosophique de l'Homme". His classifications were published in "Le Préhistorique: antiquité de l'homme" (1882; "The Prehistoric: Man's Antiquity") and in subsequent revisions."
rock shelter or rockshelter: SYNONYM: abri
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A natural cave with a roof of overlying rock that extends beyond the sides of the cave; a cave that is formed by a ledge of overhanging rock. Such a shallow cave or cliff overhang was used by humans to provide shelter from the elements, especially hunters and gatherers. The shelter is not deep enough to be classed as a cave.
Acheulian: SYNONYM: 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.
Altamira: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the most important painted Palaeolithic caves (as is Lascaux, France) and one of the earliest discovered (1879). The site is in the Cantabrian Mountains of northeast Spain and the 280-meter long cave is famous for its polychrome animals, which include deer, bison, and wild boar painted in red, black, and a range of earth colors. Most of the art in the cave was produced by Solutrean and Magdalenian peoples, with one layer radiocarbon-dated to c 13,000 BC. The most famous panel is of 15 bison, plus deer and horses. There is also a hall with black paintings, and symbols are found in several parts of the cave. The paintings' authenticity was challenged right up to 1902 when Emile Cartailhac finally accepted that they were genuine.
Amudian: SYNONYM: Amud
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture and industry close to the Sea of Galilee near Tiberias, Israel. There are several important caves, including Emireh, the type site of the Emiran, and Zuttiyeh, the type site of the Amudian. These demonstrate the early occurrence of Upper Palaeolithic blades and burins even earlier than the Mousterian and its flake tools. The Amud cave is Mousterian or Emiran and in 1961 the skeletal remains were found of two adults and two children estimated to have lived about 50,000-60,000 years ago (remains held in the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem). They consist of a skeleton of an adult male about 25 years old, a fragment of an adult jaw, and skull fragments of infants. The skeleton has an exceptionally large brain (1800 cc). The remains suggest that they are part of a group known as Near Eastern Neanderthal man. This group represents a mixture of West Asian features similar to those of fossils found in 1957 in Iraq that were estimated to date from about 46,000 years ago and those of the Upper Paleolithic people who lived in southwestern France and the Middle East from about 10,000 to 35,000 years ago. These findings provide more evidence that Neanderthal man was a highly varied species who lived in much of the Northern Hemisphere, except the New World. Amudian material has been recognized at the cave of et-Tabun (Mount Carmel) and at sites like Jabrud, Adlun, and the Abri Zumoffen in the Levant. It has been suggested that the Amudian may have been ancestral to subsequent Upper Palaeolithic industries of the Middle East, hence the name 'pre-Aurignacian' which has sometimes been given to industries of Amudian type.
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."
armor: SYNONYM: arms, armour, body armor
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Protective clothing with the ability to deflect or absorb arrows, bullets, lances, swords, or other weapons during combat. There are three main types: 1) armor made of leather, fabric, or mixed materials reinforced by quilting or felt, 2) mail, of interwoven rings or iron or steel, and 3) rigid armor of metal, plastic, horn, wood, or other tough material, including plate armor of the Middle Ages' knights. Armor was used well before historical records were kept by primitive warriors. The first was likely made of leather hides and included helmets. It was found that in the 11th century BC, Chinese warriors wore 5-7 layers of rhinoceros skin. Greek heavy infantry wore thick, multilayered linen cuirasses in the 5th century BC. Armor is found along with arrows, clubs, hammers, hatchets, and other weaponry and is often ornamented. The defensive armor, the shield, and thorax, were called hopla, and people wearing them were called hoplites.
Aurignacian: SYNONYM: Aurignac (adj)
CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: A series of Upper Palaeolithic cultures in Europe that existed from about 35,000 to 20,000 years (dates also given as 38,000-22,000 years) ago. They were characterized by their use of stone (flint) and bone tools, refinement of those tools, and the development of sculpture and cave painting. The culture is named for the type site Aurignac, in southern France, where such artifacts were discovered. In France it is stratified between the Châtelperronian and the Gravettian (and before the Solutrean and the Magdalenian), but industries of Aurignacian type are also found eastwards to the Balkans, Palestine, Iran, and Afghanistan. At Abri Pataud there is a radiocarbon date of pre-31,000 BC for the Aurignacian, but there are possibly earlier occurrences in central and southeast Europe (Istállóskö in Hungary, Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria). There is still considerable dispute about the extent to which the Aurignacian is contemporary with the cultures of the Perigordian group in southwest France. The sites are often in deep, sheltered valleys. Split-based bone points, carinates (steep-end scrapers), and Aurignac blades (with heavy marginal retouch) are typical of Aurignacian. Aurignacian is also important as the most distinctive and abundantly represented of the early Upper Palaeolithic groups.
beating: SYNONYM: hammer-and-anvil technique, paddling
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A technique to thin and even out the walls of coil- or slab-built vessels after they have partially hardened to leather" hardness to improve the bonding between coils or add surface texture. One holds an anvil or fist inside the vessel while the outside is struck repeatedly with a paddle which can be wrapped with cord or fabric to add texture to the vessel surface."
black-burnished ware: SYNONYM: black burnished ware
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A standard range of culinary vessel-forms manufactured in two different fabrics and widely imitated. BB1 (black-burnished ware Category 1), was black, gritty, hand-made, mainly in Dorset, and widely distributed from c. AD 120 to the late 4th century AD. BB2 (black-burnished ware Category 2) was greyer and finer, with a silvery finish, wheel-thrown in the Thames Estuary area, and widely exported from c. AD 140 to the mid 3rd century AD.
briquetage: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Thick-walled very coarse ceramic material used for the manufacture of evaporation vessels in saltmaking from the mid 2nd millennium BC through to medieval times in northern Europe. The forms and fabrics of briquetage vessels are fairly distinctive and allow trade patterns and distribution networks to be established, especially for Iron Age times. Also known as very coarse pottery (VCP)
Buckley earthenware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: C 1720-1775, North Wales, The body of this earthenware is quite coarse because of the combination of two different types of clay in the process. The ware is made of layers of pink-firing and yellow clays. The combination of the two clays served to make the poor clays more workable. The ware is decorated with a black lead-glaze. The exterior fabric color on unglazed portions is purplish-red. The body exteriors are often heavily ribbed. When broken, the fabric interior exhibits the characteristic red and yellow layers.
calcite-gritted ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery whose fabric embodies crushed calcite (either shell or mineral grit) as a tempering agent, used especially for kitchen wares such as storage jars, cooking pots, and bowls.
Carrowkeel ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of later Neolithic pottery found in Ireland during the 3rd millennium BC, named after material recovered from the passage graves at Carrowkeel in Co. Sligo, Ireland. The fabric of Carrowkeel ware is generally rather thick, coarse, and heavily gritted. The forms comprise mainly open round-bottomed bowls and hemispherical cups. Decoration is extensively applied, often all over the outer surface of the vessel and over the rim, and is typically ?stab and drag' or impressed. Some of motifs used resemble PASSAGE GRAVE ART.
chain mail: SYNONYM: 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.
chi-square test: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A statistical test that is used to measure the significant differences between sets of observed values and those which would be expected and determine whether the deviation from what was expected is more than random chance would suggest. It can be used for many different archaeological observations, such as examining the existence of an association between settlement distribution and distinct ecological zones in a region, or between different fabrics and decorative styles in pottery production. From the data, the number expected in each zone on a random distribution can be calculated by proportion, and the deviation between expectation and observation measured. It is then possible to assess whether the observed data could have arisen by chance, or whether some other factor is affecting it. Karl Pearson developed the test.
Chumash: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late prehistoric and historic Native American culture originally living along the coast of southern California and speaking a Hokan language. Chumash also occupied the three northern channel islands off Santa Barbara. The major Chumash groups were the Obispeño, Purismeño, Ynezeño, Barbareño, and Ventureño, Emigdiano, and Cuyama. The Chumash were skilled artisans, made wooden-plank canoes and vessels of soapstone, as well as a variety of tools out of wood, whalebone, and other materials. They produced basketry, did rock painting, and started of clamshell-bead currency in the area. The Chumash were among the first native Californians to be encountered by the Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who visited the islands in 1542-1543.
combing: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A finishing technique in ceramics manufacture whereby a tool with multiple teeth or prongs is dragged along the surface of the fabric to leave multiple, nearly parallel incisions, either straight or wavy.
contingency table: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A table for classifying elements of a population according to two variables -- recording the relationship between two classes of items, each entry counting the number of specific occurrences of the possible combinations. The rows correspond to one variable and the column to the other. The classes compared in such a cross tabulation might be, for instance, sites in different ecological zones, artifacts in different contexts, or the coincidence of different decorative traits and fabric types in a pottery assemblage. Various statistics can be calculated from such a table, especially to test the significance of the observed correlations; the chi-square test is often used to do this.
cotton: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: A plant cultivated for its hairy flowering heads, from which come fibers widely used in textiles. The earliest cotton yet found comes from the site of Mehrgarh in Pakistan, where it was probably being cultivated before 4000 BC. The earliest records of cotton in the New World come from the Tehuacan Valley of central Mexico, c 4300 BC, and pre-ceramic villages on the Peruvian coast from 3300 BC. It was grown in northeast Mexico by c 2000, and was introduced into the southwestern United States in the 1st millennium BC. In the Old World, the first known occurrence is in the Indus Valley civilization where cotton was used for both string and textiles at Mohenjo-Daro by 2750 BC. The first record in African archaeology goes back only to the culture of Meroë in the fifth century BC. Actual cotton fabrics appeared at Mohenjodaro around 2500 BC.
Covalanas: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic painted cave in the Canabrian region of northern Spain. The style, including a finger-blob technique, suggests that it belongs to a primitive stage of cave art, possibly preceding the Solutrean.
Dales ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Coarse shell-gritted hand-made cooking pots, probably made near the confluence of the rivers Trent and Humber from the mid 2nd century AD onwards. The fabric is hard and coarse with a smooth but unpolished surface, grey, black, or brown in color. The body of the clay contains small fragments of white shell. Sandy wheel-thrown imitations, Dales-type cooking pots, were made in Lincolnshire, the Humber Basin, and probably around York at the same time.
encrusted urn: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A style of pottery current in many parts of the British Isles in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, with a bucket-shaped profile and thick, rather coarse, fabric. It is distinctive in having heavy applied decoration in horizontal and vertical bands around the upper portion of the body.
Farnham pottery: SYNONYM: Alice Holt ware
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Major Romano-British pottery industry based around Farnham in Surrey, England, producing a wide range of wares between the mid 1st century AD and the 4th century AD. Grey and cream-colored fabrics predominate.
fineware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Good-quality pottery that has a fine textured fabric, relatively thin walls, and is usually tableware or for personal use. Fineware may be decorated, but above all stands out within the overall repertoire of material used by a community in being of superior quality.
flag: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A piece of fabric with a design, used as an emblem for military or naval purposes, signaling, decoration, display, propaganda etc.
flat rimmed ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of late Bronze Age pottery found in northern and northwestern parts of the British Isles having a rather coarse fabric, generally dark color, and distinctive unornamented flat-topped rims.
Frere, John (1740-1807): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A British antiquary who first recognized the antiquity of Palaeolithic flint artifacts. His flint weapon finds in the Hoxne brick-earth pit in Suffolk in association with bones of extinct mammals in an undisturbed deep stratum was reported in 1797. Frere recognized that the implements were man-made, 'fabricated and used by a people who had not the use of metals', and suggested that they should be referred to 'a very remote period indeed; even beyond that of the present world'. His ideas were in advance of his time, and his conclusions were ignored largely because they contradicted the accepted Creation date of 4004 BC.
Gallo-Belgic ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Vessels imported from Gaul in the late 1st century BC and early 1st century AD, usually in black or silver-grey fabrics (terra nigra), or white fabric coated with red slip (terra rubra), or a dense white or cream fabric like pipeclay. Close British imitations of these fabrics and forms are known, and further copying of the forms was wide-spread. The imported vessels often have the name of the potter stamped on the inner surface of the base, a practice imitated in but usually with illegible markings.
Gerzean: SYNONYM: Nagada II
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late predynastic culture of Upper Egypt, successor of the Amratian, c 4000-3500 BC. It is named after the site of El Gerza or Gerzeh in the Fayum and is well represented at the cemetery of Naqada in Upper Egypt; another important site is Hierakonpolis. Flintwork included ripple-flaked knives and their was metalworking as copper was coming into use for axes, daggers, etc. Faience was introduced and ground stone vessels were popular and very finely worked. Typical pottery is a light-colored fabric in shapes imitating the stone vessels, decorated with red painted designs. These include imitations of stone markings, geometrical patterns and designs taken from nature. Ships were common, especially the papyrus-bundle craft used on the Nile. There is much evidence of contacts with southwestern Asia (in wavy-ledged handles on the jars, in cylinder seals, representations of mythical animals, the use of mudbrick in architecture, and possibly writing). These seem to have led to the advances which brought Egypt to the level of unified civilization at the start of the Dynastic period c 3200 BC.
globular urn: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of middle Bronze Age pottery found widely in southern England and forming part of the range of vessels within the Deverel-Rimbury tradition. Characterized by a flat base, expanded body, and vertical neck, globular urns are generally large and made from fairly coarse fabrics. Decoration is usually confined to the upper body and neck and is typically incised or made with impressed cord. Some examples have lugs or applied decoration at the junction between the body and the neck.
Gnathian ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A pottery fabric of the Hellenistic period (4th-3rd centuries BC) in southern Italy. Produced originally at Apulia, the pots are decorated with a black-glossed technique with simple designs in yellow and white. It is the western equivalent of West Slope ware. It is unlike other south Italian pottery and was widely exported.
grain: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The direction or texture of fibers found in wood or leather or stone or in a woven fabric
grass-tempered ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery embodying chopped grass or straw in its fabric as a tempering agent. Grass-tempered wares are well represented amongst pagan Saxon communities of the immediate post-Roman period in southern and eastern England; indeed the presence of such pottery is the basis upon which sites of the period are recognized.
Grimston ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of early and middle Neolithic pottery found in the northeast of England, named after the site of Hanging Grimston in what was formerly the East Riding of Yorkshire. Characterized by fine fabrics, good-quality finish, and round-bottomed forms with a carinated profile. In 1974 Isobel Smith suggested that such pots were part of a far wider distribution of carinated vessels found right across the British Isles and she proposed the term Grimston-Lyles Hill ware. These vessels represent the earliest style of pottery found in the British Neolithic, although the term shouldered bowl is now preferred to Grimston-Lyles Hill.
heddle loom: SYNONYM: heald loom
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A specialized loom that lifts some of the warp (lengthwise) threads so that the weft (crosswise) threads can be passed through the warp easily and quickly. The heddles are short lengths of wire or flat steel strips used to deflect the warp to either side of the main sheet of fabric. Originally heddles were movable rods, but later cords, wires, or steel bands were used. They are supported by the loom's harness, and each has an eyelet through which the warp threads pass. The heddle is considered to be the most important single advance in the evolution of looms in general.
Holt ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery made at the legionary works depot at Holt, Denbighshire, in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD. Of light-red and buff fabric, often imitating Samian forms, and found mostly in Chester and adjacent areas
Huntcliff ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A distinctive variety of calcite-gritted pottery limited to a range of distinctive forms, made in east Yorkshire from the 1st century AD through to the 4th century AD. The fabric is black or dark brown, and the dishes and jar bodies were hand-made. During the late 4th century an extremely common form was a thick-walled cooking pot with a heavy curved rim, often with a groove on the inside of the lip.
Laconian pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Spartan pottery made in the 6th century BC, characterized as black-figured and black-glossed. The fabric was widely exported -- to Cyrenaica, Etruria, and Greek colonies in Italy.
lacquer: SYNONYM: lacquer ware
CATEGORY: artifact; ceramics
DEFINITION: The resin of the sumac tree, used as a coating to harden and strengthen manufactured items. This varnishing substance was used from prehistoric times and was indigenous to southern and central China. Applied in many coats to a core made of wood, fabric, paper, baskets, leather, ceramics, etc., it forms a tough and durable protective surface, resistant to water and capable of a high polish. In China lacquered vessels were made as early as the Shang dynasty. Lacquer is often colored red or black.
lacquer ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Ornate wooden domestic and funerary vessels common in China from the Shang Dynasty (14th century BC) onwards, manufactured by repeatedly coating a wooden or fabric pre-form with lacquer in order to build up a rich shiny surface.
larnax: SYNONYM: plural larnakes
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Minoan-Mycenaean clay or terra-cotta coffin. This kind of coffin, resembling a rectangular wooden chest, enjoyed a brief popularity in the eastern Greek region c 530-460 BC. The sarcophagus was often crudely painted on the sides with funerary or religious scenes. 'Clazomenian' examples were painted in imitation of contemporary vase styles. The term was also used for a closed box, seen in a royal tomb at Vergina, and in art. A third use of the term was for a bathtub made of a fabric containing straw.
London ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of pottery with a relatively fine burnished grey or black fabric, often imitating various forms of Samian bowls, and often decorated with inscribed lines, impressed stamps, rouletting and compass-scribed circles. Made in the Thames Estuary area, Suffolk, Hertfordshire, and the Nene Valley in the late 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and widely distributed during this period.
Loulan: SYNONYM: Lou-lan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Chinese military outpost in eastern Turkestan (modern Sinkiang), founded in the mid-3rd century. Documents of the 3rd and 4th centuries and silk fabrics have been found there, including Chinese textiles of Han date and a piece of silk tapestry dating c 200/100 BC-100-200 AD.
Lyles Hill ware: SYNONYM: Grimston ware
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of early and middle Neolithic pottery found in the northeast of England, named after the site of Hanging Grimston in what was formerly the East Riding of Yorkshire. Characterized by fine fabrics, good-quality finish, and round-bottomed forms with a carinated profile. In 1974 Isobel Smith suggested that such pots were part of a far wider distribution of carinated vessels found right across the British Isles and she proposed the term Grimston-Lyles Hill ware. These vessels represent the earliest style of pottery found in the British Neolithic, although the term shouldered bowl is now preferred to Grimston-Lyles Hill.
Magna Graecia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A group of ancient Greek cities along the coast of southern Italy; a general term for the Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily. An important center of the Greek civilization, it was the site of extensive trade and commerce and the seat of the Pythagorean and Eleatic systems of philosophy. Euboeans founded the first colonies, Pithecussae and Cumae, about 750 BC, and subsequently Spartans settled at Tarentum; Achaeans at Metapontum, Sybaris, and Croton; Locrians at Locri Epizephyrii; and Chalcidians at Rhegium (Reggio di Calabria). After the 5th century, attacks by neighboring Italic peoples, strife among cities, and malaria caused most of the cities to decline in importance.
Man-ch'eng: SYNONYM: Mancheng
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Hebei province, China, where two Early Han-dynasty tombs are cut into a rock cliff -- the tombs of Liu Sheng (c 113 BC), Prince of Chung-shan, and his wife Tou Wan. Numerous grave goods, 2800 items, including jade, gold, silver, iron, glass articles; inlaid and gilded vessels, earthenware, lacquer ware, silk fabrics, and fine weapons are in the chambered tombs behind sealed doors. Both tombs were provided with large stores of food and wine and escorts of chariots and horses. The bodies of Liu Sheng and Dou Wan were dressed in shrouds made of jade plaques sewn together with gold thread, the first of some dozen jade shrouds thus recovered from Han tombs.
Movius, Hallam Leonard (1907-1987): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American prehistorian who worked in Northern Ireland, southeast Asia, and Abri Pataud, France.
needle: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A thin, pointed implement normally of bone or metal used for sewing. There is a hole at the blunt end for threading the sewing material through the needle, which is then used to carry it through the fabric being joined or embroidered.
Oxfordshire ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery made mostly in the vicinity of Oxford in a variety of fabrics. Vessels include distinctive types of mortaria, PARCHMENT WARE, and red color-coated ware in the Samian tradition. This centrally placed industry became one of the largest and most important in Britain during the 4th century AD.
oxidized: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A pottery fabric fired in an oxidizing atmosphere with abundant oxygen available to form red hematite from the iron in the clay fabric or in pigments.
parchment ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A range of tableware, mostly bowls, in pale fabrics with simple red-brown painted decoration that was popular in Britain in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD.
Pevensey ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The products of a small local factory near Pevensey, Sussex, which made imitations of Oxfordshire and New Forest type pottery in a very hard orange-red fabric and a deep red color coat.
Pleistocene: SYNONYM: ice age, Ice Age, Oiluvium; Quaternary; Great Ice Age; Pleistocene Epoch
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A geochronological division of geological time, an epoch of the Quaternary period following the Pliocene. During the Pleistocene, large areas of the northern hemisphere were covered with ice and there were successive glacial advances and retreats. The Lower Pleistocene began c 1.8 million years ago, the Middle Pleistocene c 730,000 years ago, and the Upper Pleistocene c 127,000 years ago; it ended about 10,000 years ago. Most present-day mammals appeared during the Pleistocene. The onset of the Pleistocene was marked by an increasingly cold climate, by the appearance of Calabrian mollusca and Villafranchian fauna with elephant, ox, and horse species, and by changes in foraminifera. The oldest form of man had evolved by the Early Pleistocene (Australopithecus), and in archaeological terms the cultures classed as Palaeolithic all fall within this period. By the mid-Pleistocene, Homo sapiens evolved in Africa and Europe. Homo sapiens spread to Asia and the Americas before the end of the epoch. There were mass extinctions of large and small fauna during the Pleistocene. In North America more than 30 genera of large mammals became extinct within a span of roughly 2,000 years during the late Pleistocene. Of the many causes that have been proposed by scientists for these faunal extinctions, the two most likely are changing environment with changing climate, and the disruption of the ecological pattern by early humans. The Pleistocene was succeeded by the Holocene or present epoch.
Pleistocene Series: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of the Quaternary System defined by its deposits. It is a worldwide division of rocks deposited during the Pleistocene Epoch (1,600,000-10,000 years ago). It overlies rocks from the Pliocene Epoch (5.3-1.6 million years ago) and is itself overlain by rocks of the Holocene Series; together these two latter divisions make up the Quaternary System. These deposits contain evidence of humans and their development throughout glacial and interglacial conditions. . By international agreement, the global stratotype section/point for the base of the Pleistocene Series is in the Vrica section in Calabria, Italy. The Pleistocene's boundary with the Pliocene occurs just above the position of the magnetic reversal that marks the Olduvai Normal Polarity Subzone, thus allowing the worldwide correlation of Pleistocene rocks with reference to the magneto-stratigraphic timescale.
poppy head beaker: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A beaker shaped like the seed-head of a poppy plant in a grey or black fabric with a polished surface. It has an everted rim and the body is often decorated with panels of dots in barbotine, or with rouletting. The largest sizes could be classified as jars.
pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: One of the oldest of the decorative arts, consisting of objects made of clay and hardened with heat. The objects are commonly useful. Earthenware is the oldest and simplest form of pottery; stoneware is a pottery compound that is fired at a sufficiently high temperature to cause it to vitrify and become extremely hard; and porcelain, finer than stoneware and generally translucent, is made by adding feldspar to kaolin and then firing at a high temperature. Its raw material is common, shaping and baking it are simple, and it can be given an infinite variety of forms and decorations. Pottery sherds, almost indestructible, are one of the commonest finds and are very important to archaeologists. It is often one of the clearest indicators of cultural differences, relationships, and developments, and its techniques of manufacture can be comparatively easily recovered by ceramic analysis. It can be shown whether it was modeled, coil-built, or wheel-made. The nature of its fabric, ware, or body can be identified, as can any surface treatment such as slip, paint, or burnish. The wide range of methods of decoration can also be studied. As the date of manufacture can usually be fixed, pieces of pottery give clues to archaeologists as to the date of other finds at the site. Petrological analysis of inclusions has been used to trace the source of pot clays and thus reconstruct ancient trade in pottery. Archaeologists usually call fired pot clay the 'fabric' of a piece of pottery. Texture, mineralogy, and color of fabric may be used to describe and classify pottery.
Puuc: CATEGORY: site; artifact
DEFINITION: Region in the north-central region of the Yucatán, Mexico, with a distinctive Maya architectural style of 600-900 AD, the last variant of the Classic Maya culture. Its main characteristic is the use of veneer masonry to cover rubble and concrete walls, and the prefabrication of sculpted elements which were assembled to form patterns and masks. The style was florid, with alternating zones of plain and elaborately decorated carving; fret- and lattice-designs and round columns are common, with many low, single-story residential buildings. These mosaics are found at Uxmal, one of the best-known Puuc centers. Puuc architecture has also been found at Labná, Kabah, and Sayil. The style spread all over the northern Yucatán and there are some structures at Chichen Itza. Puuc sites are thought by some to represent a lowland Maya New Empire" with their apogee in the 9th-10th centuries a time during which the great Petén or Central Subregion centers were in decline or had collapsed."
red-slipped: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Any pottery to which a slip, a thin layer of fine clay, is applied to pottery before firing by dipping the pot into a thick liquid mixture of clay and water. Slip decorates the fabric, often chosen to bake to a color such as red, yellow, or black, and makes the pot more watertight by clogging the pores of the earthenware.
reduced: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A pottery fabric fired in a reducing" atmosphere or one in which oxygen is denied so that iron in the fabric tends to form magnetite rather than hematite."
reduced ware: SYNONYM: reduced (adj.)
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A pottery fabric fired in a "reducing" atmosphere or one in which oxygen is denied, so that iron in the fabric tends to form magnetite rather than hematite.
Ripoli: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village of Middle to Late Neolithic hut foundations (fondi di capanne) and some crouched burials in Abruzzi, Italy. It has given its name to the Ripoli Trichrome Painted Ware of the central Italian Middle Neolithic, c 4500-3500 BC. Ripoli Ware has a buff fabric painted with geometric designs in black, separated from areas painted red by a pair of lines enclosing a row of dots. The usual shape is a round-based cup with straight vertical wall and single handle, this sometimes with a pair of curious projections from the top. The Ripoli pottery is one of a series of Italian trichrome painted wares, including the Capri style and the Scaloria style. There are connections with Danilo across the Adriatic. Notable among the flintwork are tanged and single-barbed arrowheads.
Romano-Saxon ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: This term is used both of wheel-made Roman pottery in coarse or color-coated fabrics with stamped or bossed decoration resembling that on many hand-made Saxon vessels, and of hand-made Saxon pottery imitating Roman forms. It is found mainly in eastern England. The former class belongs to the late 3rd and 4th centuries and is not to be confused with stamped ware of earlier periods such as LONDON and PARISIAN wares.
rouletting: SYNONYM: roulette
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A technique used to decorate pottery. In Greek pottery-making, it began in the early 4th century BC. A strip of metal was applied to the pot as it was turned on the wheel, leaving a band of even decoration on the inside; it was more accurately called chattering. Alternatively, a cogged wheel was rotated over the soft clay of a pot to leave a series of impressed dashes at right angles. That method was used especially on Roman pottery and was found on the exterior of vessels, especially on the rim. In India, the technique was used on pottery of rougher fabric and on forms derived from Northern Black Polished wares, possibly beginning in the late 1st millennium BC. The pre-Columbian civilization of the Chavín also used rouletting on its pottery.
Samian ware: SYNONYM: Terra Sigillata, terra sigillata ware
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A distinctive Roman pottery produced mainly in south and central Gaul and the Moselle valley in the first century BC and first three centuries AD; later it was made in Britain (Colchester). It was copied from Italian Arretine ware and was itself widely imitated. It is a red ware with a bright glossy surface, plain or elaborately decorated by means of molds. Its second name derives from the stamp with which the pottery frequently added his name to his products. The maker's name was stamped on the pottery, but the decorations, the shape, the fabric, all help in dating and tracing its origin. The shapes come from metal prototypes. The forms, decorations, and stamps have allowed a detailed chronology to be established. The wares provide a valuable means of dating the other archaeological material found with them.
Savernake ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Output from a substantial Roman pottery industry focused in northwest Wiltshire, especially the area now known as Savernake Forest. A number of kilns have been excavated and together suggest a nucleated industry comprising many separate workshops. The pottery itself is typically light grey in color, flint-tempered, with clay pellets and grog visible in the fabric. Typical products include jars, bowls, flagons, butt beakers, and platters. Output starts at about the time of the Roman conquest or a little before and continues through into the later 2nd century AD.
Sesebi-Sudla: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A walled settlement in the Upper Nubia's Abri-Delgo, between the second and third cataracts, founded by the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten (1352-1336 BC).
shell-gritted ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery made from a fabric tempered with crushed marine shell or fossil shell.
silk: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Thread that can be drawn off the cocoon spun by the grub of the moth Bombyx mori and used for weaving fine cloth, which originated in China in Neolithic period. The silk industry was established by the Anyang period, c 1300-1030 BC. The Anyang oracle bones include characters for silk, silk fabrics, silkworm, and mulberry tree, and traces of silk fabrics are occasionally found preserved. Silk fabric was used as a writing surface at least as early as the 5th century BC. Both manuscripts and paintings on silk have come from Chu tombs of the 5th century BC and later. Elaborate methods of weaving were developed by the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) and textiles exported in large numbers along Silk Route to Roman world and later to Byzantium. The route is the collective name for several overland and ocean routes for silk trade from the 1st-8th centuries AD. From Chang'an, capital of the Han Dynasty, the main route went west through the Gansu corridor.
Spiro: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in eastern Oklahoma of the Mississippian Tradition (Middle Mississippi) Caddo culture beginning in the 8th century AD as a village of one-room houses, and by 950 had reached its maximum extent with the addition of eight burial mounds. The eight mounds are of various sizes and one served as a temple mound and burial mound (Craig Mound). In about 1200, Spiro was abandoned as a settlement and became a specialized mortuary and temple complex. To this final period, 1350-1400, belongs the enormous Craig Mound, covering an intact wooden mortuary house. Commoners and servants received only simple burial, but the ruling elite were placed in funerary litters filled with weapons, fabrics, smoking pipes, imported minerals, and copper, and shell ornaments decorated with designs of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (Southern Cult). Because of its abundance of paraphernalia of the Southern Cult, it is often linked to the centers at Etoway and Moundville, even though it is culturally distinct from them. Many of designs on carved shell gorgets and embossed sheet copper ornaments probably came from Mesoamerica, perhaps from Huastec culture of Veracruz. The site's archaeological value has been considerably diminished, as it was heavily vandalized during a period of commercial exploitation in the 1930s.
St. Remy ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Fine pottery, often with relief decoration, in a white fabric with a green or yellow (lead) glaze, made at St-Remy-en-Rollat, near Vichy. Small jars, bowls, and flagons were imported into Britain in the 1st century. Imitations were made in Britain up to the mid 2nd century.
stamping: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A kind of impression where a stamp, seal, or die especially made for the purpose, is used to displace pottery fabric near the surface of a plastic or nearly leather-hard vessel and create a pattern or design.
Surrey white ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of medieval pottery produced in Surrey from about 1300 AD onwards. Distinctive in having an off-white or buff-colored fabric, often with a patchy green glaze. From the 15th century, however, thick green and yellow glazes were used. The term TUDOR GREEN ware is usually used to describe the products dating to the 16th century. The main forms produced were cooking pots, cauldrons, skillets, pipkins, jugs, jars, and pitchers.
tack: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small nail in cut or round form, used to fasten carpet or fabric to wood and for similar light fastening jobs
Tarragona: SYNONYM: Kallipolis; Iberian Cissa or Cissis; Carthaginian Tarchon; Roman Tarraco
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important city of Roman Spain, later capital of the province of Hispania Tarraconensis, with the first identifiable occupation by the local Iberian. In 218 BC, it was captured by Roman generals and was transformed into one of the earliest Roman strongholds in Spain. Augustus recuperated there during his Cantabrian wars, where an altar and temple were later dedicated to him. The emperors Hadrian and Trajan endowed Tarragona with power and cultural prestige, while its flax trade and other industries made it one of the richest seaports of the Roman Empire. It prospered until being sacked by the Franks in 260 AD. Remains surviving include the Republican-period walling, Augustus' palace, an amphitheater, a section of aqueduct (the Devil's Bridge), and a Romano-Christian cemetery.
tazza: SYNONYM: tazzae (pl.)
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A cup-like vessel, usually in a light-colored fabric, with a stem and foot, decorated with bands of frilling. The frequent occurrence of signs of burning on the inner surface of such vessels indicates their possible use as lamps. May have been used in religious rituals.
terra nigra: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Black or silver-grey colored Gallo-Belgic tableware produced in Gaul during the 1st century BC through to the mid 1st century AD. Exported from Gaul to other nearby parts of the Roman empire for military and civilian use, and to communities outside the empire who presumably acquired it as a traded luxury item. Close imitations of fabrics and forms are known amongst copies made in Britain. The imported vessels usually have the name of the potter or workshop stamped on the inner surface of the base, a practice imitated in Britain but usually with illegible markings.
textile: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Fabric produced by spinning and weaving fibers, whether of animal or vegetable origin. Fragments may be preserved by waterlogging and tanning, by desiccation, or by corrosion of copper or bronze lying alongside. More commonly, items such as spindle whorls, weaving combs, and loom weights attest their existence.
Thetford ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Mass-produced wheel-turned late Saxon pottery manufactured in workshops near Thetford in Norfolk, England, from the late 9th century through to the early 12th century. The fabric is hard and sandy, grey to buff in color. The products are mainly cooking pits and jars with limited rouletting and applied thumb-strip decoration.
turning: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: In pottery making, a reductive forming technique using a sharp tool to remove long curls of fabric from a rotating vessel.
unguent flask: SYNONYM: unguent bottle
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small narrow-necked vessel, usually in a rough fabric, used as a container for ointment or perfume. Because of what they contained, such vessels are often found long distances from source as evidence of trade and exchange.
Urfirnis: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Characteristic ware of the Middle Neolithic and Early Helladic periods of Greece and also the name of the glaze-like paint. The pottery has a buff fabric decorated with a dark lustrous slip or glaze. The sauce-boat and the askos are the most notable shapes.
varnished ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery, usually small bowls, decorated with rough-cast scales or roundels, or rough-cast beakers in white fabric with greenish-brown shiny slip. Generally 1st century BC/AD in date and produced in central Gaul and on the Rhine.
Veii: SYNONYM: modern Veio
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Etruscan city just north of Rome, of south Etruria, destroyed by Rome in 396 BC. After some intermittent Bronze Age occupation, it was settled in the Villanovan period (9th century BC), occupying a large plateau. The 7th century BC saw early Etruscan chamber tombs, including some painted examples. It was enclosed by a wall and rampart in the 5th century BC and had a temple containing large terra-cotta statues of deities. Veii was the greatest center for the fabrication of terra-cotta sculptures in Etruria in the 6th century BC. Evidence suggests an irregular street-plan, with cisterns and cuniculi indicating the Etruscan hydraulic engineering. The town is surrounded by a number of Villanovan and Etruscan cemeteries. One of the chambered tombs, the Grotta Campana, contains the oldest known Etruscan frescoes. The ashes of the dead were stored in burial urns surmounted by archaic terra-cotta portrait heads. Nearby are the remains of the Temple of Apollo, home of the terra-cotta statue of the Apollo of Veii" and also a temple shrine dedicated to the neighboring Cremera River. Veii's destruction in 396 BC was not total however and the Romans later reconstructed the city. Under Augustus it was made a municipium and up to the 3rd century AD it continued as a religious center."
vesicular ware: SYNONYM: calcite-gritted ware
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery whose fabric embodies crushed calcite (either shell or mineral grit) as a tempering agent, used especially for kitchen wares such as storage jars, cooking pots, and bowls.
void: SYNONYM: pore
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An open space in a pottery fabric
weaving: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The interlacing of long, thin materials, such as yarn or thread to make cloth (fabric) or baskets. The use of wool, cotton, silk, flax, or some other plant or animal fiber yarn or thread to produce textiles of various sorts by criss-crossing the yarns together in at least two directions. Warp threads are those which run up and down the length of a piece of textile, weft threads are those that run across the weave at right angles to the warp. Many different patterns are possible, producing different kinds of textile and styles of weave. Patterns can be introduced by using different colored threads in a set order. The earliest evidence of weaving is that represented as textile and flexible basketry impressions on burnt clay from Pavlov in the Czech Republic which date to between 25000 and 23000 BC. The oldest woven cloth so far discovered is made from flax, dates to about 7000 BC, and comes from Çayönü, Turkey.
weight: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Stone, wooden, metal, or clay object that when suspended by a rope or cord acts to stretch, tension, or pull tight some kind of fabric or material (e.g. thatch weight; net weight). Stone, clay, or metal object of standard weight used in measurement on balances or scales of some kind. An object used to weigh something down or to measure the weight of another object.
Winchester ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Late Saxon (Saxo-Norman) style of earthenware pottery typical of the period AD 850 to 1150 and found widely in southern England and occasionally beyond. The ware is wheel-thrown in a hard sandy fabric usually with a yellowish-red or green-colored glaze. The range of vessel types includes spouted pitchers, cups, bowls, jars, tripod pitchers, and bottles. The last-mentioned appear to be skeumorphic copies of leather prototypes. Winchester ware is often decorated with lines, rouletting, stamped osettes, cordons, or applied strips.
Woodland period: SYNONYM: 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.
Yanik Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Tell site near Tabriz, Iran, with evidence of the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Early Bronze Age, and Iron Age occupations. It is one of the earliest permanent settlement sites in the area, dating from the late-7th millennium BC. The earliest pottery was undecorated, but painted wares appeared in the higher levels. The site was occupied until the beginning of the Islamic period. In the 3rd millennium BC, it was a town surrounded by a stone wall and contained round houses and granaries built of mud-brick. The latest structure on the mound is massive, perhaps a citadel, built of mud-brick and probably of the Sassanian period. The Early Bronze Age settlement consists of a long sequence of Kura-Araxes occupations and many materials of this culture complex.
York ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Style of wheel-thrown late Saxon pottery current in the period AD 850-1150, one of a series of regional industries of the period making cooking pots, jars, pitchers, flagons, bottles, jugs, bowls, and dishes. York ware is distinctive hard wheel-thrown quartz-gritted fabric, light red to brown or grey in color.
Yorkshire vase food vessel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Distinctive early Bronze Age ceramic vessel found mainly in eastern England in association with inhumation burials. Characterized by coarse fabrics made into thick-walled vessels with flat bases, decoration on the shoulder and rim, and often with perforated lugs. Dates for this style of pottery centre on the period 1800-1400 BC.

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