Archaeology Wordsmith

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Results for arable:

arable: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Able to grow crops.
Banawali: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in northern Indiana with occupation between 2500-1500 BC. The earliest settlement had pottery similar to Early Harappan. A second phase was urban with residential blocks on regular streets and Mature Harappan-type pottery. The third phase had pottery comparable to Late Harappan wares (Bara ware, Late Siswal ware, ochre-colored pottery).
Buret: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Sibera, western Turkistan, which was occupied in late Palaeolithic times. It is known for mammoth-tusk figurines of women. They resemble Paleolithic statuettes from Europe and the Middle East and the nude ones probably served as fertility symbols or as representations of the great goddess, whose cult was widespread. Of five found at Buret, the most unusual is a clothed woman wearing a one-piece trouser suit with a hood attached to it comparable to those still worn by present-day Eskimos.
Celtic fields: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A term used for small plots with low earthen banks formed around them, which were field systems of pre-Roman times in Britain and northwest Europe. These date to the Early Bronze Age (1800 BC), so it is a misnomer to attach 'Celtic' to them. Traces of these systems may still be visible where later agriculture has not removed them. The oldest examples in Britain are blocks of arable land (sometimes associated with farmsteads, hollow ways, stockades, and enclosures) divided into a patchwork of more or less square units. They are defined by lynchets at the upper and lower edges, and by slightly raised ridges at the sides. Similar fields are known from Scandinavia and the Netherlands.
Changsha: SYNONYM: Ch'ang-sha
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City and capital of Hunan province, China, where Neolithic sites have been investigated since 1955. Isolated finds hint at Shang and Western Zhou settlement in this area. Over a thousand Chu burials have been excavated, with the richest being the early 2nd century BC tombs at Mawangdui. Artifacts from the Chu capital at Jiang-ling are comparable in date and importance.
Dhlo Dhlo: SYNONYM: Danangombe
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A later Iron Age site located northeast of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and the 17th-19th century AD capital of the Torwa state. Occupation probably began during the 16th century, marked by elaborately decorate dry-stone terrace-retaining walls surrounding extensive house platforms. The foundation of the site is comparable to stone structures at Khami and Naletale. Dhlo Dhlo appears to have had access to imported luxury goods from coastal trade.
Dorak: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of northwest Anatolia (western Turkey), south of the Sea of Marmora, reported to have two looted 'royal tombs' of the Copper Age comparable to, but far richer than, those of Alaca Hüyük. The material, which was photographed, drawn, and described by J. Mellaart, vanished immediately after his report -- creating controversy and doubt that the tombs even existed.
formative stage: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Any culture having the presence of agriculture or other subsistence economy of comparable effectiveness; also, the successful integration of such an economy into well-established, sedentary village life.
Hama: SYNONYM: ancient Hamath; Epiphaneia
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in central Syria on the Orontes River that was an important prehistoric settlement, which became the kingdom of Hamath under the Aramaeans in the 11th century BC. It fell under Assyrian control in the 9th century BC, later passing under Persian, Macedonian, and Seleucid rule. A Neolithic occupation comparable to that of Mersin was succeeded by a village with Halaf pottery. Later levels continue through to the Iron Age, when it was an inland site of the Phoenicians. During the 2nd millennium BC, Hama was a large town, but it does not appear in ancient documents until c 1000 BC, when it became capital of an Aramaean kingdom. Excavations revealed a fine palace of this period, with evidence of ivory carving. The Arabs took the city in the 7th century AD.
Holmes, William Henry (1846-1933): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American archaeologist who extinguished the more bizarre theories of the origins of humans in North America and who helped establish professional archaeology in the US. Holmes opposed a popular belief that there was a period in New World prehistory comparable to Upper Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) Europe. His 1903 monograph on ceramics laid the foundation for the culture history of the eastern United States. He was curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. His other published works include Handbook of Aboriginal American Antiquities (1919).
Isis: SYNONYM: Aset, Eset
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: Important Egyptian goddess, wife of Osiris and mother of Horus. She was anthropoid in form and goddess of the Moon. She was a powerful magician and also venerated as the ideal mother. She became the symbolic mother of the Egyptian king, who was himself regarded as a human manifestation of Horus. She had important temples throughout Egypt, as at Philae and Behbet el-Hagar, and Nubia. By Greco-Roman times she was dominant among Egyptian goddesses. Several temples were dedicated to her in Alexandria, where she became the patroness of seafarers." From Alexandria her cult spread throughout the Mediterranean including Greece and Rome. In Hellenistic times the mysteries of Isis and Osiris developed; these were comparable to other Greek mystery cults."
Jarlshof: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site at the southern tip of the Shetland Island, Scotland, with a settlement from the early 2nd millennium BC. This early occupation was a Late Neolithic village comparable to Skara Brae and it was followed after an interval by oval houses of the Late Bronze Age, a round house and wheelhouse with Souterrain of the Iron Age, a Viking settlement, and continuous occupation throughout the Dark Ages. It was named after a house in a Sir Walter Scott novel. Some of the most interesting artifacts recovered from the Norse levels are a series of slates incised with drawings of animals and abstract decorations.
Jhukar: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A site in Sindh, Pakistan, lending its name to a Late Harappan culture of Chalcolithic times (2nd millennium BC). The culture, which succeeded the Indus Civilization on certain sites in Sindh (type site of Chanhu-daro; Amri) has material showing a mixture of elements from the Indus, Baluchistan, and the Middle East. There were compartmented seals, copper dress pins, and a shafthole ax. The pottery is that of the Mature Harappan. Certain copper or bronze weapons and tools are comparable to examples from Iran and Central Asia.
Kot Diji: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site of the Indus Valley, east of Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan, which has given its name to one of a group of pre-Harappan cultures in the area (variant of Nal-Amri). Radiocarbon dates suggest early 3rd millennium BC for the settlement, which was eventually destroyed and replaced by a settlement of the Indus Civilization. The Kot-Dijian pottery was a thin pinkish ware decorated with horizontal black lines, perhaps related to that of the Zhob valley. Comparable wares have been found in pre-Indus levels at Harappa and Kalibangan in Punjab.
lamina: SYNONYM: pl. laminae
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A flat, sheetlike stratum of sediment (clay, fine sand) defined by stratification planes less than 1 cm apart. The term stratum" identifies a single bed or unit normally greater than one centimeter in thickness and visibly separable from superjacent (overlying) and subjacent (underlying) beds. "Strata" refers to two or more beds and the term "lamina" is applied to a unit less than one centimeter in thickness. The term is also used for a sample of clay which has been cut in section and placed between two plates of glass enabling a petrographic analyst to read and determine through microscope the constituent ingredients of piece of ceramic."
Larnian culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mesolithic culture, named after Larne, Ireland, and found only on sites close to coasts and estuaries in western Scotland and eastern Ireland. It is characterized by shell middens and the early toolkits include leaf-shaped points made on a flake, the oldest unambiguous implement in Ireland, and scrapers. Some are dated to 6000 BC. Later assemblages contain more flakes than blades and include tranchet axes and very small scrapers. . More recent work casts doubt on the antiquity of the people who were responsible for the Larnian industry; association with Neolithic remains suggests that they should be considered not as Mesolithic but rather as contemporary with the Neolithic farmers. The Larnian could then be interpreted as a specialized aspect of contemporary Neolithic culture. Lake and riverside finds, especially along the River Bann, show a comparable tradition. A single radioactive carbon date of 5725 +/- 110 BC from Toome Bay, north of Lough Neagh, for woodworking and flint has been cited in support of a Mesolithic phase in Ireland.
Linyi: SYNONYM: Lin-i; Lin-yi; Champa
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An ancient Indochinese kingdom founded in 192 AD in the southern Shandong province, China, and lasting to the 17th century AD. In the past decade, at least ten important Western Han tombs have been excavated in this district, some richly furnished with paintings on silk and lacquers comparable to those from Mawangdui. One tomb contained nearly 5000 inscribed bamboo slips that preserve the texts of a number of late Eastern Chou philosophical works and military treatises, including the Sun Zi bing fa ('Master Sun on the Art of War'). The kingdom later became known as the Indianized kingdom of Champa, which was eventually absorbed by Vietnam.
magnetometer: SYNONYM: proton magnetometer
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A geophysical instrument that measures the intensity and sometimes direction of the Earth's magnetic field. It is used in electromagnetic surveying to identify changes in the field within soil or sediment that might be caused by subsurface features, hearths, kilns, or metal artifacts. When a current is passed through a coil in a bottle of water or alcohol the protons of the hydrogen atoms align themselves to its magnetic field. When the current is cut off, the protons realign themselves according to the earth's field, its strength being indicated by the frequency of their gyration on realignment. This sets up a weak current which is transmitted back from the bottle to the instrument and there registered on dials. The resulting figures are plotted to reveal anomalies in field strength -- usually due to buried iron, kilns, hearths, or to pits or ditches. These features can thus be rapidly located without disturbance of the ground, and excavation can be directed to the most promising areas. Magnetrometry is the use of a magnetometer for mapping subsurface anomalies. There are a number of designs, but two are particularly widely used. The proton magnetometer makes an absolute measurement of field strength, but is intermittent in operation: each reading is initiated by the push of a button, and takes some seconds to appear on the display of the instrument. Fluxgate magnetometers work on a different principle, and give a continuous reading, which makes surveying less time-consuming. Most fluxgate machines do not however measure field strength directly, but rather are gradiometers, measuring the vertical gradient of the earth's' magnetic field, i.e. how fast the field strength changes with vertical distance from the earth's magnetic field Gradient measurements can also be used in archaeological surveys and have an advantage over absolute measurements. The earth's field strength varies continuously during the day at any one location. Absolute measurements taken at different times have to be calibrated for this effect if they are to be comparable. Gradient measurements are not affected by this diurnal drift in field strength, and so do not need to be calibrated. Proton gradiometers are also available. The fluxgate, differential fluxgate, and proton gradiometer take continuous measurements of relative vertical change in the intensity of field strength.
Mawangdui: SYNONYM: Ma-wang-tui
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Hunan province, China, near Chang-Sha (Changsha City), of three Early Han-dynasty tombs with features of both shaft and mounded tombs. Tomb No. 2 belonged to the first marquis of Dai (d. 186 BC), a high official of the Han administration. Nos. 3 and 1 are apparently the tombs of his son (d. 168 BC) and wife (d. shortly after 168 BC). In construction and contents the three tombs are far different from Han princely burials in the north and reflect the lingering traditions and material culture of the Chu kingdom, which had fallen to Qin less than a century earlier. Each tomb takes the form of a massive compartmented timber box at the bottom of a deep stepped shaft; the shaft was filled in with rammed earth and a mound was raised over it. The contents of Tomb No. 1 were very well preserved: the body of the wife of the marquis, wrapped in silk and laid inside four richly decorated nested coffins. The 180 dishes, toilet boxes, and other lacquer articles, silk clothing, offerings of food, musical instruments, small wooden figures of servants and musicians, and a complete inventory of the grave goods written on bamboo slips depict extreme wealth. Tomb 3 was furnished in the same fashion as Tomb 1, but contained more silk paintings, three rare musical instruments, and an extraordinary collection of manuscripts, some on silk and some on bamboo slips, including some of the earliest known maps from China, treatises on medicine and astronomy, comet charts, and important literary texts (the Daoist/Taoist classic Dao De jing" ("Tao te ching") the "Yi jing" ("Book of Changes")) The contents of Tomb 2 are comparable to those of Tomb 1 but poorly preserved."
Munyama Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave on Buvuma Island in Lake Victoria, Uganda, with a backed microlith industry extending back to c 15,000 BC. Small backed bladelets were the most common implements, with endscrapers and some geometrical backed microliths. Backed microliths industries of comparable antiquity are known in East Africa at Nasera, Lukenya Hill, and Matupi.
Omari, el-: SYNONYM: Omari
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site south of Cairo, Egypt, on the east of the Nile Delta, showing primitive Neolithic material closely comparable to that from Merimde. This phase of the Lower Egyptian Predynastic period, consisting of several Predynastic settlements and cemeteries clustered around the Wadi Hof, was transitional between the Merimde and Maadi.
oppidum: SYNONYM: plural oppida
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A Roman term, coined by Caesar, for the fortified Celtic towns he found in his campaigns in Gaul in 58-51 BC. The Roman oppidum was a town which served as administrative center for its surrounding area, or, in the provinces, was a community of Roman citizens, either Italian immigrants or enfranchised natives. The term is now used for comparable sites in Celtic territory, from Spain and Britain to the Carpathians. Celtic oppida of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC were large permanent settlements, usually of hillfort type, the first true towns in Europe north of the Alps. Oppida also served as centers for trade, industry, market, craft production, and religion.
Reisner, George Andrew (1867-1942): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American Egyptologist who set new standards in Egyptian archaeology with his meticulous excavation methods, which were then comparable only with those of the British archaeologist Flinders Petrie. He carried out long-term excavations at Giza, Nag ed-Der, Kerma, and Deir el-Ballas. He directed a campaign in Nubia to survey threatened monuments, and conducted excavations at Samaria in Palestine and in Sudan (Kerma, Meroe, Gebel Barkal). In Egypt, he excavated many tombs (Pyramid of Menkaure, tomb of Hetepheres) and the Valley Temple of Mycerinus at Giza.
Sabatinovka: SYNONYM: Sabatinivka
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An area in the western Ukraine with several Tripolye sites, the most important being of the early 4th millennium BC and then a late Tripolye site yielding a knot-headed copper pin comparable to early Unetice metalwork of the early 2nd millennium BC. A later site forms the eponymous site of the Ukrainian aspect of the Nova-Sabatinovka-Bilogrudivka culture, a mid-2nd millennium BC culture found also in north Rumania and Podolia. Most settlement sites are unfortified lowland camps, whose large quantities of ash in domestic debris inspired the term 'zolniki' (ash-pits). Timber-framed houses on stone foundations are organized along streets at some sites.
Sakçe Gözü or Sakjegeuzu: SYNONYM: Sakçagöze, Sakje-Gözü
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in southeast Turkey, occupied in the Early Neolithic (comparable to Mersin) and a palace site of the Syro-Hittites of the early 1st millennium BC. The latter has produced quantities of important reliefs and inscriptions. The Neolithic period had a sequence of wares relating the Amuq and Halaf pottery styles. The fortification walls, nearly 12 feet thick, were strengthened by projecting external buttresses and by turrets at the corners. The palace was approached through a portico with a beautiful series of sculptures showing strong Assyrian influence. The whole mound was composed of stratified debris of the 5th and early 4th millennia BC.
Samaria: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Palestinian site which was the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel. After a sporadic Early Bronze Age occupation, the city was founded by Omri, king of Israel, in 880 BC, and the earliest, and very fine, buildings and planning are attributed to him and his son, Ahab. Influence of the Phoenicians is visible, especially in a collection of carved ivories comparable to those of Nimrud. To c 800 belongs a group of ostraca, throwing light on political conditions and the development of the Hebrew script. The site continued to be occupied after its destruction by the Assyrians c 721 BC. It regained importance in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. Omri had a palace defended by walls of ashlar masonry.
Samarkand: SYNONYM: Samarqand, Maracanda
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City in east-central Uzbekistan that is one of the oldest cities of Central Asia. In the 4th century BC, then known as Maracanda, it was the capital of Sogdiana and was captured (329 BC) by Alexander the Great. It benefited from its location in a fertile oasis at the point where the Silk Route from the West divided, one branch proceeding to China and other to India. Excavations have revealed abundant Graeco-Sogdiana material. A palace of the 6th or 7th century AD yielded wall paintings comparable with the famous paintings from Pendzhikent.
site catchment analysis: SYNONYM: SCA; site-catchment analysis
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of reconstructing the economy of a site by studying the resources that are available within a reasonable distance, generally 1-2 hours' walking time from the site. The technique was devised by E. Higgs and C. Vita-Finzi for 'the study of the relationship between technology and those natural resources lying within economic range of individual sites', an extension of the least-cost principle. The catchment area is defined by drawing a circle around the site; the radius has often been set at 5 km (i.e. an hour's walk) for agriculturists and 10 km (i.e. two hours' walk) for hunter-gatherers, figures which represent ethnographically observed averages. Within the catchment area the proportions of such resources as arable or pastoral land are calculated, and from these figures conclusions can be drawn concerning the nature and function of the site. The technique offers a valuable and reasonably objective method for analyzing relationships between site location, technology, and available resources. This type of off-site" analysis can concentrate on the total area from which a site's contents have been derived."
Smith, William (1769-1839): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British engineer and geologist known for his development of the science of stratigraphy. He collected fossils throughout England and discovered that different exposures of the same stratum contained comparable fossils, eventually leading to the formulation of the index fossil concept. Smith's great geologic map of England and Wales (1815) set the style for modern geologic maps, and many of the names he applied to the strata are still in use today.
strata: SYNONYM: sing. stratum; layers
CATEGORY: feature; term
DEFINITION: The definable layers of archaeological matrix or features revealed by excavation; units of sedimentation greater than one centimeter thick. A layer in which archaeological material -- as artifacts, skeletons, and dwelling remains -- is found during excavation. It is the more or less homogeneous or gradational material, visually separable from other levels by a discrete change in the character of the material being deposited or a sharp break in deposition (or both).
stratum: SYNONYM: pl. strata; layer
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The definable layers of archaeological matrix or features revealed by excavation; units of sedimentation greater than one centimeter thick. A layer in which archaeological material -- as artifacts, skeletons, and dwelling remains -- is found during excavation. It is the more or less homogeneous or gradational material, visually separable from other levels by a discrete change in the character of the material being deposited or a sharp break in deposition (or both).
Tarascan: SYNONYM: Tarascans, Purépecha
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An independent state of the Late Post-Classic Period centered in the mountains of the Michoacán province of Mexico, one of the very few to successfully resist Aztec incursions. It is also the name of the people there, who were linguistically unrelated to any other Mesoamerican group. Their capital, Tzinzunzan, was built overlooking Lake Patzcuaro, and appears to be a ceremonial center consisting of a huge platform mound surmounted by five pyramids. Fine gold and tumbaga jewelry and well-made copper and bronze tools have been found. The Tarascan state, with its later capital of Pátzcuaro, survived into historic times. They reached a level of social and political organization comparable to that of the Aztec and the Maya.
Teotihuacán: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Very important site north of Mexico City, at its peak c 450-650 AD the largest and most powerful city in Mesoamerica. It had its beginnings as one of a number of small agricultural settlements around the shores of ancient Lake Texcoco. Teotihuacán flourished by c 300/200 BC and by 100 AD, it had about 40,000 inhabitants. Archaeological work has provided more information about Teotihuacán than about any comparable Mexican site. Teotihuacán maintained extensive political and trade contacts with lowland Mexico, and is famed for its enormous public buildings and pyramids. At its heart is a complex of magnificent architecture including the massive Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon, the Cuidadela (probably an administrative center), and the Great Compound (probably a market place); there are no ball courts. The structures are distributed along a central roadway known as the Street of the Dead. After the destruction of Cuicuilco, Teotihuacan expanded and people were housed in apartment compounds which exhibit some social differentiation. Many of the inhabitants were craftsmen, and some 500 workshop sites have been identified. Four-fifths of those sites were devoted to obsidian working. Teotihuacán controlled the central highlands of Mexico, and was in contact with all the principal centers of civilization (Monte Albán, Tikal, etc.) as far as Belize. The influence of Teotihuacán during the Early Classic was considerable and most major centers have some Teotihuacán forms. Characteristic of Teotihuacán influence are Talud-Tablero architecture, images of Tlaloc, cylindrical tripod vases, Thin Orange Ware, murals, and stylized human face masks. There is very little massive stone sculpture except as architectural embellishments. The end of Teotihuacan came fairly suddenly. A decline in its influence at other sites was evident by c 600, but the city itself was not destroyed until 750. There is much evidence of burning from that time, indicating that the city may have been sacked --possibly by the Chichimecs. The city was never rebuilt, but a small population remained in the ruined city for more than a hundred years.

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