Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for archaic:

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.
archaic maiolica: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A series of jugs and bowls of the early 13th to late 16th centuries in Tuscan and Italian towns. They were decorated with geometric motifs, leaves, and other forms outlined in brown and set into green or brown backgrounds. They were sold as far as Spain, North Africa, and northern Europe. There seems to be a connection to earlier Byzantine and Persian products.
Early Archaic Percussion Pressure flaking: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of flaking in which the Preform was shaped by percussion flaking. The blade edges were ground to prepare a surface for the removal of elongate pressure flakes. The pressure flaking may have taken the form of alternate uniface bevel flaking, biface serration flaking, alternate biface bevel flaking or irregular pressure flaking.
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."
Laurentian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lake Forest Late Archaic
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Important Late Archaic tradition in northern New York and Vermont and the upper St. Lawrence valley, c 4000-1500 BC. Characteristic artifacts are broad-bladed, notched projectile points; bifaces, scrapers, and polished-stone tools (celts, gouges, plummets, slate knives or points). The tradition has phases such as Brewerton, Vergennes, and Vosburg.
Northern Archaic Tradition: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Northern Archaic tool tradition
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Culture of the North American arctic and subarctic dating to c 6000-4000 bp. The characteristic artifact is the side-notched point. Assemblages also contain oval bifaces, endscrapers, and notched pebbles. The tradition was defined at Onion Portage in the Denbigh Flint Complex and postdates the American Paleo-Arctic Tradition. The peoples are thought to have come there from the south; they hunted terrestrial mammals such as caribou and developed their own styles of artifacts. They showed a preference for expanding northern forests, and, although they left traces outside the forest limits in a few places, they generally avoided the now-deglaciated coasts of Canada's far north.
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.
agora: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plural agorae
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In ancient Greek cities, an open space, serving as a commercial, political, religious, and social center. The word, first found in Homer, was applied by the Greeks of the 5th century BC in regard to this feature of their daily life. It was often a square or rectangle, surrounded by public and or sacred buildings and colonnades. The colonnades, sometimes containing shops (stoae) often enclosed the space, which was decorated with altars, fountains, statues, and trees. There were several kinds of agora, (1) archaic, where the colonnades and other buildings were not coordinated, and Athens is an example of this, (2) Ionic, more symmetrical, often combining colonnades to form either three sides of a rectangle or square, often with two or more courtyards, such as Miletus and Magnesia. In highly developed agora, like that of Athens, each trade or profession had its own quarter. It also served for theatrical and athletic performances until special buildings and places were made for those purposes. Under the Romans, it became a forum where one side was a vast basilica and the rest colonnades.
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.
Apple Creek: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Archaic site in Illinois where people engaged in intensive collecting of wild vegetable foods after 3000 BC, esp. hickory nuts and acorns.
archaistic: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Imitatively archaic; affectedly and deliberately antique.
Argos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Argos (meaning agricultural plain)"
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City in the northeastern Peloponnese of Greece, just north of the head of the Gulf of Argolis. The name was applied to several districts of ancient Greece but it is most often used to describe the easternmost part of the Peloponnesian peninsula and the city of Argos was its capital. Homer described it as the fertile plain inhabited by Agamemnon, Diomedes, and other heroes in the Iliad". The site was probably occupied since the Neolithic / Early Bronze Age and was very prominent in Mycenaean times (c 1300-1200 BC). Argos was probably the base of Dorian operations in the Peloponnese c 1100-1000 BC and from then on the dominant city-state of Argolis until it allied itself with Sparta after the Peloponnesian War in 420 BC. In 392 it broke with Sparta to unite with Corinth in the Corinthian War. Argos later joined the Achaean League (229) and Argos became its center after the Roman conquest and destruction of Corinth (146). The city flourished in Byzantine times and did not decline until around 1204 AD. One tyrant Pheidon is thought to have introduced primitive coinage and a weights and measures system. Archaeological excavations began in 1854 on the Argive Heraeum and Argos was famed for its connection with the goddess Hera. There was a natural sanctuary there long before the Dorians came c 1100-1000 BC. The shrine is reported to be of extreme antiquity. The statue of Hera for a new 5th-century temple was done by the celebrated sculptor Polycleitus whose work was said to rival that of Pheidias the sculptor of the Parthenon. There is material evidence of Neolithic Early and Middle Bronze Age a Mycenaean cemetery with chamber tombs Geometric and Archaic features and ruins of the classical and Roman city. The Larisa hill was evidently the Mycenaean acropolis and citadel holding a classical temple. There was also a Roman theater and small odeum. The site is mostly covered by the modern city."
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.
Ayampitin point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked stone missile tips of willow-leaf outline found among archaic hunter-gatherer communities of the Peruvian highlands and coasts in 9000-7000 BC. Typical examples are 60-70mm long.
birdstone: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bird-stone, bannerstone, boatstone
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A class of prehistoric stone objects of undetermined purpose, usually resembling or shaped line a bird; carved bird effigies. These polished stone weights occurred in the cultures of the Archaic tradition (8000-1000 BC) and later cultures in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. They were probably attached to throwing sticks or atlatls to add weight and leverage.
birdstone or bird-stone: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bannerstone, boatstone
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A class of prehistoric stone objects of undetermined purpose, usually resembling or shaped line a bird; carved bird effigies. These polished stone weights occurred in the cultures of the Archaic tradition (8000-1000 BC) and later cultures in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. They were probably attached to throwing sticks or atlatls to add weight and leverage.
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.
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.
Caeretan ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Archaic pottery of Etruria that was probably made at Cerveteri. It was black-figured style.
caryatid: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pl. caryatides; korai
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A supporting base or column of a structure shaped in the form of a woman. Most often, a caryatid supported a porch, entablature, or a colonnade and was in the form of a draped woman bearing it on her head. The best known are of the Erechtheum at Athens (420-415 BC) and other examples part of three small buildings (treasuries) at Delphi in Greece (550-530 BC). The figures' origin can be traced to mirror handles of nude figures carved from ivory in Phoenicia and draped figures cast from bronze in archaic Greece. Caryatids were used in the Roman emperor Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, the Villa Albani at Rome, two colossal figures at Eleusis, in Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa's Pantheon, and in the colonnade surrounding the Forum of Augustus at Rome. The male counterparts of caryatids are called 'atlantes'.
Chiot pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Archaic pottery of the Greek island of Chios, though it may also have been made at Naucratis. The pots and chalices had a cream slip and glazed interior. Decoration on the exterior was scenes with figures; inside were floral patterns.
coinage: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A standardized series of metal tokens, their specific weights representing particular values, and usually stamped with designs and inscriptions. They were used in many parts of the ancient world for everyday exchange. Greek coinage first appears in the Archaic deposit of the Artemision at Ephesus. Roman coinage was struck at Rome and various points throughout the empire.
Corinth: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city of Greece, located where the Peloponnese meets the isthmus that connects it to the Greek mainland. The city has an exceptionally high acropolis on Acronocorinth Hill and profited from having ports on both the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs. The site was occupied from before 3000 BC, but its history is obscure until the early 8th century BC, when the city-state of Corinth began to develop as a commercial center. There is evidence of a Neolithic and an Early Bronze Age settlement at Corinth, both of considerable size. There is little evidence of Mycenaean settlement, however, and the next major settlement belonged to the Dark Age, c late 10th century BC. Corinth was a very important city throughout the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods. Corinth's political influence was increased through territorial expansion in the vicinity, and by the late 8th century it had secured control of the isthmus. The Corinthians established colonies at Corcyra and Syracuse, later making them dominant in trade with the western Mediterranean. From c 720-570 BC, Corinthian painted vases in the black-figure technique (which the Corinthians invented) were exported all over the Greek world. Workshops dating to this period have been excavated in the potters' quarter at Corinth, producing both pottery and terracottas. Corinthian pottery provides the most useful dating method available to archaeologists studying this period. Northwest of the agora stand seven Doric columns, which are the remains of the Temple of Apollo (c 550 BC). Callimachus is said to have invented the Corinthian column capital here c 450-425 BC. Corinth was involved in most of Greece's political struggles and in 146 BC was destroyed by the Roman general Lucius Mummius. In 44 BC, Julius Caesar reestablished Corinth as a Roman colony. Many of the visible remains date from the classical Greek and especially the early Roman periods, including a Roman agora (marketplace), the Odeon, the Pirene fountain, the Glauke fountain, temples, villas, baths, pottery factory, gymnasium, basilica, theater, and an amphitheater. Parts of the classical fortifications on the acropolis survive. In the later medieval period it then passed from Frankish to Venetian and eventually to Turkish hands. Substantial buildings from all these periods have been found in excavations since 1896. Modern Corinth was founded in 1858, 3 miles north of the ancient town, after an earthquake leveled the latter.
Cyrene: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Greek colony in Libya founded c 630-650 BC by settlers from Thera; it was located halfway between Egypt and Tunisia on the African coast. Its fertile soil made it a great African city in Roman times. Cyrene was also famous in antiquity for its horses and the production of the plant silphium which was used by the Greeks to prepare certain medicines. The extensive remains still visible today are mostly Roman, laid out on an Hellenistic plan. Evidence exists for earlier buildings, including the 6th-century BC Temple of Apollo with stone columns and mainly mud-brick walls. Imported Greek pottery of the Archaic period has been found in the sanctuary of Demeter.
Dalton: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A complex of the late Paleo-Indian and Archaic periods of the midwestern and eastern U.S., associated with the Dalton projectile point class. The point was varied due to reuse and resharpening. The Dalton sites indicate that hunting deer was important. Brand in northeast Arkansas and Stanfield-Worley Bluff in Alabama are the best-known sites.
Dry Creek: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The most important prehistoric site in Alaska, in the foothills of the Alaska Range in the south-central region. The lowest layer is assigned to the Nenana complex, the middle microblade assemblage to the Denali complex (10,690 bp), and the upper side-notched points are classed as Northern Archaic (4670-3430 bp).
Early Bronze Age: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period in the Levant dating to c 3200-1950 BC, just before Egypt's Archaic Period. Increasing urbanization was shown by the building of walled towns.
East Greek pottery: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A type of pottery produced during the Archaic Period within the Greek islands an on the western coast of Turkey at Chios, Samos, Ephesus, Miletus, Clazomenae, and Rhodes.
Eastgate point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of projectile head developed c. AD 500 as an arrowhead during the late Archaic Stage in the Great Basin and western interior of North America.
Elephantine: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island in the Nile just above Aswan, Egypt, which was the traditional southern boundary between Egypt and Nubia during the Old and Middle Kingdoms. It had famous granite quarries whose stone was used extensively throughout ancient Egypt. Two temples recorded by the archaeologists of Napoleon's expedition have since disappeared. Remains show continual occupation from the Archaic period to the Greco-Roman period.
Elko point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Large, roughly triangular-shaped chipped stone points with concave, straight, or slightly concave bases. Two main forms are known: those with corner notches on the base and those with ?ears' on the base. Dated to the period 1300 BC to AD 700 among Desert Archaic Stage communities of the Great Basin and western interior of North America.
Emery, Walter Bryan (1903-1971): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British Egyptologist noted for his careful surveying and study of prospective sites. He discovered galleries of the Bucheum in Armant, burials of Nubian X-Group kings, queens and nobility of 4th-6th century AD, and at Saqqara, excavating many Archaic Period mastabas. His most important discovery was a row of 1st-Dynasty tombs attributable to kings or nobles. He excavated at Thebes-West Bank, Nubia's Buhen and Ballana and Qustul.
Etruscan pottery: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery produced at various centers in Etruria, especially during the Archaic and Classical periods. Although plain wares were particular common (Bucchero, Impasto), figure-decorated pottery was also produced (Caeretan ware, Pontic ware).
Eve theory: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The hypothesis that all modern humans are descended from a common first mother who lived in southern Africa about 200,000 years ago. The Eve" theory is similar to the Noah's Ark model and is based on genetic research showing that as modern humans spread throughout the world they rarely if at all interbred with existing but more archaic humans such as the Neanderthals. The "Eve" theory does not imply a creationist view only that there has been a chance survival of a single line of mitochondrial DNA."
Eyasi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A late Middle Pleistocene site in northern Tanzania with faunal remains including archaic Homo sapiens and extinct mammal species as well as artifacts.
fiber-tempered pottery: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: fiber tempering
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Any clay pottery to which grass or root fibers have been added as a tempering material. This ware is the earliest pottery in Caribbean South America and is the oldest pottery in the United States, making its appearance in Archaic shell mounds in Georgia and Florida before 2500 BC.
Fikellura ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: An Archaic East Greek black-figure pottery style. It has been found in the Fikellura cemetery on Rhodes; the source of the clay was Miletus.
Fraser River: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A complex of sites in the Fraser River delta in British Columbia, Canada, showing the sequence of the Northwest Coast Tradition of three periods: Early 1000 BC-1 AD; Intermediate 1-1250 AD; and Late from 1250 AD. Three culturally distinct areas (the Canyon, the Plateau, and the Delta) contain evidence of the differing influences which influenced the Northwest Coast Tradition materials. Canyon sites provide evidence of a long occupation covering Big Game Hunting Tradition, Old Cordilleran Culture, and Archaic. Taken together, the sites indicate a movement from inland to the coast beginning c 2000 BC.
Giglio Island: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A mountainous volcanic island off the coast of Etruria which has an archaic Etruscan shipwreck with a cargo of amphorae filled with olives, ingots, and perfumed oil in Corinthian and Etruscan aryballoi.
Herculaneum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Ercolano
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city of Campania, Italy, that was buried by the same volcano in 79 AD that took Pompeii. Already damaged by Vesuvius in 63 AD, Herculaneum was home to 5000 people. It had modern houses, tastefully decorated, and it was wealthier than Pompeii. In the destruction of 79 AD, the town was covered in liquid mud which subsequently solidified after percolating and filling structures. It tended to preserve organic materials, especially timber. The houses are remarkable for the preservation of internal and external structures in timber, and, in some cases, of furniture and fittings. Also found are papyri and a library containing the works of Epicurus. Herculaneum probably started as an Archaic Greek foundation.
Hierakonpolis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kom el-Ahmar; ancient Nekhen
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Predynastic and Archaic settlement and necropolis in southern Upper Egypt (Luxor). The town's population was in excess of 5000 and it was particularly associated with the god Horus. In proto-dynastic times Hierakonpolis was the capital of southern Egypt. Discoveries of this period are stone palettes, votive objects, and mace-heads, with carving illustrating the rise of the kings to the divine status they enjoyed in pharaonic times. A series of successive shrines dates from early Archaic/late Predynastic.
Hoabinhian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hoabinh
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A little-known Mesolithic or Neolithic culture (early-to-mid-Holocene stone tool industry) of southeast Asia (type site is Hoa Binh, Vietnam) dating from 10,000-2000 BC. There are many chipped, pecked, and polished stone axes found in piles of shells. Its importance lies in its position between the earliest centers of rice growing in India and China, and in the part it most have played in diffusing the knowledge of agriculture into Indonesia and the Pacific. The Neolithic assemblages have pottery and ground stone tools for several millennia after 6000 BC. It is best described as a techno-complex with successive cultural accretions, the Hoabinhian cannot be regarded as an archaeological culture of chronological horizon. The majority of Hoabinhian sites found to date are in rock shelters and coastal shell middens. The three recognized phases are: archaic with unifacially worked pebble tools, intermediate with smaller pebble tools and bifacial working and edge-grinding, and late characterized by some pottery, smaller scrapers, grinding stones, knives, piercers, polished stone tools, and shell artifacts.
Homo erectus: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: [obsolete Peking man], Pithecanthropus, Pithecanthropus erectus
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Upright man, an extinct form of Homo sapiens who evolved one million years ago, just before Neanderthal Man. This species had a larger brain and was bigger than Homo habilis, with a muscular stocky body and heavy face with thick brow bones. It is thought that Homo erectus made Acheulian stone artifacts and spread out around Africa. He gradually evolved into archaic Homo sapiens about 500,000 years ago. The best known discoveries are from Far East (Java, Choukoutien, Yuanmou), but skeletal remains have been found in East Africa (Olduvai), in North Africa (Ternifine, Sidi Abderrahman) and in Europe (Mauer Jaw, Vértesszöllös). At Choukoutien there was proof that he knew the use of fire. This ancestor of modern humans evolved from Australopithecus, and his brain was about two-thirds the size of contemporary humans'.
Homo sapiens: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The modern human species, possibly evolving out of Neanderthal Man, with the archaic Homo sapiens dating to between c 100,000-33,000 years ago (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) and the oldest-known anatomically modern Homo sapiens fossils dating between 130,000-80,000 years ago. Modern man -- a large, erect, omnivorous terrestrial biped -- first appears in the fossil record during the late Upper Pleistocene around 35,000 BC. It is still controversial how Neanderthals were replaced by the modern Homo sapiens. The oldest fossils come from sites in Africa and the Near East. In Eurasia the oldest flint industries associated with Homo sapiens are always of Upper Palaeolithic blade-and-burin type. Modern man's technology replaced that of the Mousterian period.
Humbolt Series point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone points of lanceolate outline manufactured by Archaic Stage communities on the Great Plains and western interior of North America in the period c.3000 BC to AD 700. There are numerous variations in style and in size, but most have a hollow base and none have side notches.
Indian Knoll: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A shell mound site in Kentucky with over 1100 burials, many with exotic grave goods. This Archaic midden is dated c 4000-2000 BC.
Jennings, J.D. (1909-?): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American anthropologist and archaeologist who has researched the archaic civilizations, or desert cultures" of the semiarid western areas of North America of the past 10 000 years. Work at Danger Cave Utah dating to c 9000 BC confirmed survival of earliest ways of life in American West until historic times."
kore: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pl. korai
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of freestanding statue of a maiden -- the female counterpart of the kouros, or standing youth -- that appeared with the beginning of Greek monumental sculpture in about 660 BC and remained to the end of the Archaic period in about 500 BC. It evolved from a highly stylized form to a more naturalistic one. The statue was usually draped, carved from marble, and painted in its original form. These are often dedications in sanctuaries and some are found in funeral contexts. Important series were in the temple of Hera on Samos and on the Acropolis in Athens.
Koster: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of long occupation in west-central Illinois, known as one of the first multidisciplinary endeavors of new archaeology; the findings serve as a benchmark for defining the Archaic period in the Midwest. The site is unusual for its long stratigraphic sequence of Archaic and Woodland settlements, dating from c 8700 bp to 1000 AD. Hunter-gathers and, later, farmers, settled at this location on the Illinois River to exploit the fertile river bottom. The site served variously as a workshop for stone tools, a deer-butchering camp, and possibly as the site for one of the earliest villages in North America. Stoneground adzes, manos and metates are dated c 6400 BC. In later levels, there is evidence of increased hunting efficiency (the replacement of the atlatl by the bow and arrow) and of agriculture (squash and pumpkin), and possibly Mississippian association. The site also contributed to the methodology of excavation, including approaches to deeply buried sites, and the use of flotation as a technique.
Kotosh: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Major pre-Columbian ceremonial site in the north-central highlands of Peru, near Huánuco, coming into use during the Late Preceramic Period and continuing until after the end of the Chavín culture during the Early Horizon, c 1 AD. It is known for its temple structures, the earliest of which have interior wall niches and mud-relief decorative friezes, and date to the end of the Late Preceramic Period (c 2000-1800 BC). In the earliest levels (Mito) are remains of a platform on which stood the Temple of the Crossed Hands. Stone tools, some similar to Laurichocha II and III, and other artifacts appropriate to an Archaic subsistence pattern also occur in this phase. The next (Wairajirca) period has a radiocarbon date of 2305 +/- 110 BC and saw the introduction of the first pottery, a gray ware with incised designs and post-fired painting in red, white, or yellow. In the following (Kotosh) stage, there is evidence of maize cultivation, and the pottery, with grooved designs, graphite painting, and stirrup spouts, has Chavín-like features. Radiocarbon dates suggest that this period is centered on c 1200 BC and was closely followed by a pure Chavín stage with the typical pottery and ornament. Next in sequence came levels (Sajarapatac and San Blas phases) with white-on-red pottery, and the uppermost strata (Hiqueras period) were characterized by red vessels, rare negative painting, and copper tools.
kouros: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: kore (female); plural kouroi
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Greek statue of a youth or a standing nude male youth, of the Archaic Period. The large stone figures began to appear in Greece about 615-590 BC It was a funerary marker or dedication in a sanctuary. They are usually larger than lifesize; made of marble, bronze, or alabaster, and could be painted. It is thought to have been influenced by Egyptian sculpture; the first appearance of such monumental stone figures seems to coincide with the reopening of Greek trade with Egypt c 672 BC. The kouros remained a popular form of sculpture until about 460 BC.
Krapina Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Middle Palaeolithic site north of Zagreb, Croatia, dating to around the Last Interglacial. The industry was dominated by sidescrapers. Over 650 skeletal fragments of archaic Homo sapiens have been found. These comprise the skeletal fossils of at least 13 adults and children and are estimated to derive from the early last glacial period, about 40,000 to 75,000 years ago. They are identified as being transitional from Neanderthal to modern man. The evidence suggests cannibalism or funerary ritual.
Kufr Nigm: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cemetery site of the Archaic Period in the eastern Nile Delta of Egypt. There are ceramic jars incised with the name of Narmer.
Lamoka culture: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: An inland site of the late Archaic period located in the Finger Lakes region of central New York dating c 2500-1800 BC. It is characterized by narrow-stemmed points of a type usually associated with coastal areas and by a well-developed industry in worked bone. Other traits include houses framed with upright poles, beveled adzes, atlatl weights, manos and metates, and fishing gear.
Lauicocha Caves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of caves of long occupation in the central Peruvian highlands, mainly summer hunting camps, the associated winter locus being the lowlands, during the Archaic. The earliest period of occupation was c 8000-6000 BC; this level is characterized by stemless triangular points and stemmed diamond-shaped points. A number of burials indicates a Dolichocephalic population. The willow-leaf points of Lauricocha II (6000-4000 BC) show strong similarities to points at Chivaterros, El Jobo, and Ayampitim and are associated with knives, scrapers, and other hide-working implements. Later levels contain small points and then ceramics.
Le Croy point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: LeCroy
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: An Early Archaic bifurcate, chipped-stone projectile point of the US Southeast, small- or medium-sized with short triangular blades. They are dated c 6500-6000 BC and found in Ohio and Tennessee river drainages and north to the Great Lakes.
Lindenmeier: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Folsom site in eastern Colorado with occupation c 11,000 BP, also with Archaic and Late Archaic components. It was a kill, butchering, and camp site and may have been a seasonal meeting and camping place for hunting groups. The Folsom is characterized by a distinct leaf-shaped projectile point, and a variety of scrapers, knives, and blades. It marked the first association in the Americas of man-made artifacts with the bones of long-extinct mammalian forms
lithic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lithic, -lithic, lithics
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pertaining to or describing a stone tool or artifact. The capitalized term describes the first developmental period in New World chronology, preceding the Archaic period and characterized by the use of flaked stone tools and hunting and gathering subsistence. The combining form means relating to or characteristic of a (specified) stage in humankind's use of stone as a cultural tool and to form the names of cultural phases, e.g. Neolithic, Mesolithic. Lithics is the process or industry of making stone tools and artifacts.
lithic / Lithic / -lithic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: lithics
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Pertaining to or describing a stone tool or artifact. The capitalized term describes the first developmental period in New World chronology, preceding the Archaic period and characterized by the use of flaked stone tools and hunting and gathering subsistence. The combining form means relating to or characteristic of a (specified) stage in humankind\'s use of stone as a cultural tool and to form the names of cultural phases, e.g. Neolithic, Mesolithic. Lithics is the process or industry of making stone tools and artifacts.
Little Salt Spring: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric site in Florida with hearths, a boomerang, projectile point, and shell of extinct giant land tortoise from the Palaeoindian period (12,000-8500 BP). There was an Archaic occupation (6800-5200 BP) with burials of 1000 individuals preserved in peat.
Lovelock Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Archaic site in the Humbolt Lake region of west-central Nevada, occupied as early as 7000 BC. Located near a desert marsh, it has yielded details of prehistoric desert adaptations over a long period. A dating scheme covering the period 2500 BC-500 AD has been developed. The pits and artifacts indicate that the site was a cache or storage place rather than a living community.
Maadi: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lugdunum
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Egyptian Late Predynastic settlement site, south of Cairo, occupied c 3200-3000 BC, immediately preceding the Archaic period. The settlement, consisting of wattle-and-daub oval and crescent-shaped huts, as well as large subterranean houses, flourished from Naqada I to II. There are large pottery jars and storage pits, imports of the Gerzean of Upper Egypt and of Early Bronze Age Palestine.
mano: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: handstone
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A one- or two-handled small and flat ground stone tool used with a metate (quern) for grinding vegetable material such as maize, seeds, nuts, pigments, etc. Manos date dates to the Archaic Indian period, the word coming from Spanish mano de piedra, hand stone" -- referring to the upper stone which is usually cylindrical or ovoid in shape. The underlying smooth stone slab is the metate. It is a hallmark artifact defining the economic or subsistence base of prehistoric societies. Its forms vary considerably from a barely modified cobble to a long cylinder similar to a rolling pin."
mastaba: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The Arabic word for 'bench', a mudbrick superstructure of Egyptian tombs, mainly of the Archaic Period and Old Kingdom, including the royal tombs of the 1st and 2nd Dynasty. It was a low, rectangular building with a flat roof and vertical or slightly inclined walls that enclosed the shaft to the underground burial chamber. Later versions were reinforced with stone and more elaborate. It often contained a chapel, a statue of the deceased, and sometimes large numbers of rooms. The pyramids were a direct development from them. At first, kings as well as their nobles and officials were buried in mastabas, but from the 3rd Dynasty, pharaohs had pyramids and the mastabas of their eminent subjects were built around the pyramids.
maul: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A heavy, massive, long-handled hammer dating to the Archaic Indian period.
McKean Complex: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Middle Plains Archaic complex dating to c 5000-3000 BC and occupying parts of the northwestern Plains of North America. Its type site is in northeast Wyoming and has a McKean projectile point -- a stemmed, lanceolate form.
McKean point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points characteristic of the McKean Complex of the middle Archaic Stage in the Great Plains of North America during the period c.2900-1000 BC. Lanceolate in outline with curved sides and a hollow base these points were probably spearheads used in bison hunting.
Meadowcroft: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Meadowcroft rock shelter
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter in Pennsylvania with a long series of stratified deposits spanning the period from at least 14,000 BC up to the 18th century AD -- Palaeoindian, Archaic, Late prehistoric, and historic periods. The site was occupied intermittently by groups representing all the major cultural stages in northeastern North America. Charcoal samples in the lowest stratum have yielded dates in the range 35,000-19,500 BC, although there was no association with cultural material. Flint tools bear a resemblance to finds at Blackwater Draw and Lindenmeier. The evidence from Meadowcroft established beyond reasonable doubt the presence of a human population south of the ice masses in the Late Pleistocene. Meadowcroft provides some of the earliest reliable evidence of man in North America.
Medicine Lodge Creek: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A deeply stratified site located in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, with a date range of c 8000 BC to historic times. Evidence of a diversified subsistence base of small game hunting and gathering occurs at a time when the Big Game Hunting Tradition was still widely practiced in the Great Plains. Manos, metates, and remains of fish, gopher, and rabbit were found at levels dated from 7500-6500 BC. Lanceolate projectile points, similar to those found at Mummy Cave, also fall within this date range, but stemmed points typical of the Archaic fall slightly later at c 6300 BC.
Memphis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Men-nefer
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of Egypt in the Archaic Period and Old Kingdom (c 2575-c. 2130 BC), and thereafter one of the most important cities of the Near East. Located in Lower Egypt, it stood near the key point where the Nile begins to divide its waters at the head of the delta, 15 miles south of Cairo. The only surviving remains are the cemeteries west of the city, most notably the pyramids and Great Sphinx of Giza. The main pyramid fields are: Abu Ruwaysh, Giza, Zawayet el-Aryan, Abu Sir, Saqqarah (Saqqara), and Dahshur. It is said to have been founded by the 1st Dynasty ruler Menes c 2925 BC and was the seat of the creator god Ptah. During the New Kingdom (1539-1075), Memphis probably functioned as the second, or northern, capital of Egypt. Despite the rise of the god Amon of Thebes, Ptah remained one of the principal gods of the pantheon. The Great Temple was added to or rebuilt by virtually every king of the 18th dynasty. Chapels were constructed by Thutmose I and Thutmose IV and by Amenhotep III. Amenhotep III's son, the religious reformer Akhenaton, built a temple to his god, Aton, in Memphis. A number of handsome private tombs dating from this period in the Memphite necropolis testify to the existence of a sizable court. In 332 BC, Alexander the Great used Memphis as his headquarters while making plans for his new city of Alexandria. From the Fifth Dynasty onwards there was a very marked reduction in the size of the royal tombs, together with the use of materials and techniques which involved a lesser expenditure of effort and resources in their construction. By the First Intermediate period, the construction of monumental tombs seems to have stopped.
Menes (fl. c 2925 BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mena, Meni, Min
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The first king of unified Egypt, who, according to tradition, joined Upper and Lower Egypt in a single, centralized monarchy. Manetho, a 3rd-century-BC Egyptian historian, called him Menes; the 5th-century-BC Greek historian Herodotus referred to him as Min; and two native-king lists of the 19th dynasty (13th century BC) call him Meni. Modern scholars have inconclusively identified the traditional Menes with one or more of the archaic Egyptian kings bearing the names Scorpion, Narmer, and Aha. In addition to crediting Menes with the unification of Egypt by war and administrative measures, tradition attributes to him the founding of the capital, Memphis, near modern Cairo. According to Greek tradition, the pharaoh founded the 1st Dynasty, c 2925 BC. To the ancient Egyptians he was the first human ruler. According to Manetho, Menes reigned 62 years and was killed by a hippopotamus.
Minshat Abu Omar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Predynastic and Early Dynastic/Archaic cemetery site located in the northeastern Delta, Egypt, which, like the roughly contemporary settlement of Maadi, shows evidence of trade with southern Palestine. Grave goods (ceramic and stone vessels, slate palettes, jewelry, copper tools) included imports from Palestine and Upper Egypt.
moa: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: Any of several extinct, ostrichlike flightless birds native to New Zealand and constituting the order Dinornithiformes. Moas (a Polynesian term) ranged in size from a turkey to an ostrich. Moa-hunting was once an economic mainstay of the Archaic Maoris, even though large concentrations only occurred in certain regions, especially east coastal South Island. Early Polynesian peoples hunted moas for food; they made spear points, hooks, and ornaments from their bones, and water carriers from their eggs. Although the larger moas probably had become extinct by the end of the 17th century, a few smaller species may have survived into the 19th.
Mojokerto: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Modjokerto
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The find spot in eastern Java, Indonesia, of a skull of an archaic Homo erectus child, dated to c 1.5 million years BP or before. Believed to be the oldest hominid fossil in Southeast Asia, the Mojokerto child has also been classed as Pithecanthropus robustus and P. modjokertensis.
Morrow Mountain point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Middle Archaic bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points found in eastern parts of North America and dating to the period c.6000-4000 BC. Characteristically, the points are triangular in outline with slightly flared sides towards the base, and a small rounded tang on the base.
Mount Camel: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Archaic midden on North Island, New Zealand, dating to 1150-1260 AD.
Naxos (Greece): CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The largest of the Greek Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea and an important center for the so-called Cycladic culture of the Aegean Early Bronze Age, late 4th-2nd millennium BC. Mycenaean, Protogeometric, and Geometric periods are also well represented. In the period of classical Greece, Naxos has a relatively insignificant political history, and is better known for its wines and was a center of worship of the god Dionysus. Naxos marble was used for the sculpture of monumental figures and the island also supplied the emery with which to polish the marble. The Cycladic period has left numerous graves and examples of the characteristic Cycladic idols. An isolated marble door frame on the Palatia hill is the cella door of a 6th-century BC temple, while near Sangri lies the site of a square temple. For the ancient quarries there is no lack of evidence, particularly for the practice of cutting large statues in situ. There are several unfinished figures, notably a colossal archaic statue, male and with beard -- possibly a representation of Dionysius. During the 6th century BC the tyrant Lygdamis ruled Náxos in alliance with the tyrant Peisistratus of Athens. In 490 the island was captured by the Persians and treated with severity; Náxos deserted Persia in 480, joining the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis and then joining the Delian League. After revolting from the league in 471, Náxos was immediately captured by Athens, which controlled it until 404. In the 8th century, Naxos is said to have combined forces with Chalcis in a colonizing initiative to Sicily, where a colony of the same name was founded. In 1207 AD, a Venetian captured Náxos, initiating the duchy of Náxos.
New Zealand: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The southernmost and (except for Chatham Islands) only temperate landmass to be settled by Polynesians/Maoris. Beginning in c 900 AD, the lifestyle was predominantly horticultural on the North Island, but hunting and gathering on the colder South Island. Language, economy, and technology are almost fully Polynesian. There are two archaeological phases: Archaic, c 900-1300, and Classic, c 1300-1800. The Classic is associated with many earthwork fortifications, a rich woodcarving tradition, and development of the chiefly society observed by Captain Cook in 1769.
Noah's Ark model: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: replacement hypothesis
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A theory that modern humans originated in a single area of Africa and spread throughout the world, replacing other, more archaic, human types. This view is supported by the so-called Eve" theory which postulates that all modern humans are descended from a common mother. The opposing hypothesis is often called the candelabra model."
Old Copper Culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A series of late Archaic complexes in the upper Great Lakes area of the United States and Canada which settled there approximately 5,000 years ago. This culture of hunters and fishermen did not have pottery and agriculture, but the people mined native copper around Lake Superior and used it to make tools. The metal was worked by hot- and cold-hammering and by annealing. Characteristic copper implements were spear points, knives, awls, and atlatl weights. Its best-known assemblages are from Osceola and Ocanto. Later cultures did not develop metal technology, but reverted to stone use. There is general agreement that 1500 BC represents the terminal date.
Onion Portage: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important site in northwest Alaska containing one of the continent's longest stratigraphies; occupied from at least 8500 BP by a number of Eskimo-Siberian-Indian subcultures (American Palaeoarctic, Northern Archaic, Arctic Small Tool Traditions, Inuit cultures). The oldest industries, called Akmak and Kobuk, are thought to last from c 9000 BC until the mid-7th millennium BC, and include chipped tools (blades, bifaces and associated cores) which are closer to Siberian types than to those of temperate America. The Kobuk (6200-6000 BC) contained similar tools but of limited variety. After a long hiatus in occupation, the Palisades II industry (4850-3350 BC, variously 4000-2000 BC) shows links with the archaic cultures of the forest zone to the southeast, as does the succeeding Portage complex (3350-3000 BC, variously 2600-2200 BC). Next came tools of the Denbigh Flint Complex (3200 BC, variously 2200-1800 BC), followed by Chloris (1500-500 BC) with the oldest pottery in the Arctic, then a local version (Norton) of Ipiutak (400-800 AD), by a forest-adapted Indian culture called Itkillik Complex (500-1000 AD), and finally by an Arctic Woodland Culture facies of the Thule Tradition. The excellent vertical stratigraphy of this site makes it the major reference for all western Arctic chronologies, especially when taken together with the horizontal stratigraphy of Cape Krusenstern.
Oshara tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Southwestern Archaic tradition of the Four Corners region of southwestern U.S. It was an Archaic hunting and gathering culture from c 5500 BC to c 400 AD. There are five phases based on projectile point form, artifact assemblages, and socioeconomic organization. These phases are: Jay, c 5000-4800 BC, and Bajada, c 4800-3300 BC of the Early Archaic with nomadic bands of foragers and hunters; the San Jose Phase, c 3300-1800 BC; the Armijo Phase, c 1800-800 BC, with maize horticulture introduced; and the En Medio Phase, c 800 BC-400 AD, which encompassed the Basketmaker II Phase of the Anasazi culture.
Otter Creek point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Archaic Stage large bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points with a side notch found in northeastern parts of North America and dating to the period c.4500-2600 BC.
Ozark: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A cultural area named after Ozark Hills of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. An Archaic culture, called Grove phase and dating before 5000 BC, was probably ancestral to the Bluff-Dweller sites of Ozark area. Occupied in this millennium, it consists of rock shelters, caves, and open sites. Baskets and extensive remains due to dryness of cave sites.
Paijan point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone points of triangular outline with a small stem or tang at the base. Characteristic of the Archaic Stage paiján Tradition of South America in the period 9000-7000 BC.
Palliser Bay: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An area at the southern limit of New Zealand's North Island with Archaic Maori sites associated with sweet potato cultivation, attesting a fairly large horticultural population between 1100-1400 AD. After 1450 the area became depopulated, due to environmental degradation and an adverse climatic change. Settlements and burials have been excavated
Payne, Humfry (1902-1936): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: English Archaeologist who directed the British School at Athens from 1929-1936. He prepared a definitive study of Archaic Corinthian art, Necrocorinthia" in 1931 in which a vast body of important information on archaic vase painting and other arts practiced at Corinth was gathered and classified.. He also compiled an illustrated catalog of the Archaic sculpture from the Acropolis in Athens "Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis" (1936)."
Picosa culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Late Archaic culture that began c 3000 BC in the American Southwest and is considered by some to be ancestral to the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon traditions. It was located in southern California, southern Nevada, Arizona, and southwestern New Mexico, as well as the Four Corners region.
Piedmont Tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Late Archaic tradition in northeast North America. It is characterized by stemmed projectile points and lithic assemblages.
Pitcairn Island: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the isolated islands of eastern Polynesia, settled by Polynesians c 1100 AD, but abandoned when mutineers from HMS Bounty arrived in 1790. Pitcairn is one of many isolated Polynesian islands with a 'lost' population. Their is evidence of occupation in stone platforms with anthropomorphous statues, petroglyphs, and stone fishhooks and adzes -- resembling New Zealand Archaic assemblages. Its current population is descended from the mutineers of the British ship HMS Bounty and their Tahitian Polynesian consorts
Pontic ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Black-figured pottery made in Etruria during the Archaic period, possibly influenced by techniques of Attica, Corinth, and Ionia.
Port aux Choix: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Archaic cemetery site in northwest Newfoundland, Canada, dated between late 3rd-late 2nd millennia BC. The 100 burials had grave goods of ochre, polished slate, barbed bone points, toggled bone harpoon heads, shell beads and combs, needles, knives, and scrapers.
Poverty Point: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in northern Louisiana with a spectacular group of late Archaic sites, c 1300-400 BC in the Woodland stage. The site consisted of six concentric octagons, each formed of earthen ridges that seem to have been used as dwelling areas. There are also two mounds, and from the larger one the vernal and autumnal equinoxes can be observed directly over the center of the village. Artifacts include numerous clay balls used for cooking in lieu of heated stones, microliths, stone smoking pipes and vessels, clay figurines, and fiber-tempered pottery sherds. The clay balls are found in thousands, both here and at other sites in the Lower Mississippi valley. A high level of social organization is indicated by the presence of earthworks like that at Poverty Point, but there is very little evidence of the practice of agriculture.
Poverty Point projectile point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Projectile points, especially types with narrow stem-body junctures, from Poverty Point, a site is located just west of the Mississippi River in northeastern Louisiana. The site is significant because its earthworks are the oldest large aboriginal constructions known in mainland North America. They were built between 1730 and 1350 B.C. by Terminal Archaic hunter-gatherers
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.
Puerto Hormiga: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A shell midden site on the Caribbean coast of Colombia which offers evidence of a pottery-making culture as early as 3000 BC. Fiber-tempered pottery in an Archaic context from the site has radiocarbon dates between 3880-3310 BC (also 3090-2552 BC), one of the oldest wares in the Americas, rivaled only by Valdiva of Ecuador and Mina of Brazil. Much of the pottery's decoration was by impression, incision, or punctation
pyramid: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A monumental tomb in the shape of a pentahedron, a square base and four straight sides converging to an apex, built by the ancient Egyptians in stone or brick to cover or contain the burial chamber of a pharaoh. Its origin lay in the mudbrick mastaba of the Archaic Period, which in the Old Kingdom became more elaborate with the use of stone, regularity of shape, and larger size. It evolved from the step pyramid as seen at Sakkara, Dahshur, and Meidum. The pyramid is the central monument in a pyramid complex and was the preferred tomb in the Old and Middle Kingdoms (3rd-12th Dynasties). The largest and most famous is the Giza group and Khufu's is the biggest with a 230 meter long base and original height of 146 meters. The elaborateness of the funerary ritual, witnessed by the mortuary temples attached to all pyramids, had the same purpose, of guaranteeing the eternal well-being of the deceased. This sepulchral chamber having been connected with the upper world by a passage sloping downwards from the north, the graduated structure was regularly built over it, the proportions of the base to the sides being constantly preserved. The building was continued during the lifetime of its destined tenant, and covered and closed immediately upon his death. The construction of the pyramids as early as the 26th century BC was an extraordinary achievement of engineering and architecture. The tradition of the pyramid as a royal tomb was revived by the kings of Napata and Meroe. In Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, and South America, pyramids were used as temple-platforms. There are over 80 pyramids in Egypt and ancient Nubia (Sudan).
Qafzeh: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Rock shelter in Israel which yielded adult and children's remains thought to be archaic or proto-Cro-Magnon. Flint tools are dated to c 95,000 BP and animal teeth are 100,000 BP.
Republic Groves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Archaic cemetery in Florida with well-preserved human and animal bone, stone artifacts, and burial goods.
Riverton culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Archaic culture near Vincennes, Indiana, dating c 1500-1000 BC. It was a hunting-gathering culture with a variety of stone and bone tools. There were year-round settlements and seasonally occupied bases, hunting, and transient camps.
Rosegate series point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points characteristic of Archaic communities living in the Great Basin of North America in the period AD 700-1300. Distinguished by having a triangular outline, small corner notches and a basal tang. Once known as Rose Spring and East Gate types, they are now recognized as part of a single series.
Sanskrit: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sanscrit
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A language of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European, an early Indo-European language used by the Aryans of India, and still in use for Hindu religious texts. It is related to Greek and Latin and the most important early Indo-European language of northern India being, for several centuries, the medium for much Hindu and Buddhist religious writing. Vedic Sanskrit, based on a dialect of northwestern India, dates from as early as 1800 BC; it was described and standardized in the important grammar book by Panini, dating from about the 5th century BC. The Rigveda, the oldest religious document of India, was written in an archaic form of Sanskrit in the mid-1st millennium BC.
Saqqara: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sakkara, Saqqarah
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the principal necropolis of the ancient city of Memphis, near Cairo, Egypt, used from the 2nd Dynasty to the Christian period. There are 15 royal pyramids, mainly of the Old Kingdom (c 2575-2130 BC), the most being the Step Pyramid erected by Imhotep for Djoser, pharaoh of the 3rd dynasty, c 2630 BC. The royal mastaba tombs of the nobility making up most of the cemetery have yielded much evidence on the Archaic Period. Also buried here, at the Serapeum, were the sacred Apis bulls. With the passage of time burial chambers were more massively constructed of stone, and eventually hewn from solid rock. There are a large number of important private tombs of the Archaic through the Graeco-Roman period.
side-notched point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Type of stone point which is chipped on both faces and having notches on both sides near the base. They are characteristic of the Northern Archaic tradition in North America.
Signal Butte: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Great Plains site in western Nebraska occupied from c 4500 BP until historic times. It is located on a large mesa and played an important role in the initial chronological ordering of the Great Plains. There are lanceolate projectile points resembling the Folsom type in the lowest level. In the second level there are early Late Archaic materials dating c 2000 BC. The third level had a component of the Dismal River Aspect, glass beans, aboriginal artifacts, and traded copper, as well an Upper Republican Aspect component.
Solo Man: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Advanced hominid, Homo erectus soloensis, found at Ngandong and Sambungmacan in the Solo river valley of Java. More archaic than European Neanderthals, it may be later than Peking Man. There were 11 fossil skulls (without facial skeletons) and 2 leg-bone fragments recovered from terraces. Solo man has been thought to date to the Late Pleistocene (c 15,000-20,000 years ago) -- but his age remains uncertain. Others believe Solo man is a regional variant of early Homo sapiens populations, also including the Neanderthal peoples of Europe and the Rhodesioid peoples of Africa. The Solo fossils were originally given the genus name Javanthropus.
Spy: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The find site of three Neanderthal skeletons in a cave at Spy, Belgium, associated with Middle Paleolithic stone tools and an extinct subarctic fauna. These complete skeletons were found during excavations of the Mousterian levels. It was only after these discoveries that it was recognized that Neanderthal man was associated with the Mousterian and that Neanderthals were an archaic and extinct human form rather than an abnormal modern human. There was also Upper Palaeolithic material in the cave.
St. Albans point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points with corner notches, manufactured by early Archaic Stage communities in eastern parts of North America around 7500 BC.
step pyramid: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A form of Egyptian royal tomb, transitional between the mastaba of the early Archaic Period and the true pyramid of the Old Kingdom. Djoser's at Saqqarah is the only completed step pyramid known. The pyramid itself evolved through numerous stages from a flat mastaba (an oblong tomb with a burial chamber dug beneath it, common at earlier nonroyal sites) into a six-stepped, almost square pyramid (a terraced structure rising in six unequal stages to a height of 60 m, its base measuring 120 m by 108 m). The substructure has an intricate system of underground corridors and rooms, its main feature being a central shaft 25 m deep and 8 m wide, at the bottom of which is the sepulchral chamber built of granite from Aswan. The Step Pyramid rises within a vast walled court 544 m long and 277 m wide, in which there are remnants of other stone edifices.
Sulphur Spring: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sulphur Springs
CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: The earliest of three stages of the Cochise culture, named for a cluster of sites in southeast Arizona, and dating from 6000 / 7000 BC to c 4000 BC. Evidence of plant food processing (cobble manos) together with split and burnt faunal remains, imply an Archaic lifestyle, although there are almost no projectile points, blades, or knives. Besides milling stones, it is characterized by various scrapers. The remains of food animals indicate that some hunting was done.
Sungir: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic site near Vladimir, European Russia, occupied c 25,000-20,000 BC. It is by far the most northeastern of the rich Upper Palaeolithic sites of Europe and there is a strong Mousterian element in the stone artifacts. The skeletons found buried on the site had archaic features such as large brow ridges. The single and double burial are of interest for the numerous beads and other grave goods left with them allowing the reconstruction of clothing details. Radiocarbon dates range from c 25,500-14,600 bp. The artifacts have been compared to the Strelets culture assemblages of Kostenki.
Susquehanna: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Susquehanna Tradition; Susquehannock, Conestoga
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Late Archaic Tradition of northeast North America. It is characterized by stemmed points and knives, which may have evolved form the Piedmont Tradition. Susquehanna is also the name of Iroquoian-speaking American Indians who lived in palisaded towns along the Susquehanna River in what are now New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
Swanscombe, Barnfield Pit: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: British Lower Palaeolithic site on a terrace of the lower Thames Valley, North Kent, England, with a skull of possibly an archaic Homo sapiens with strong Neanderthal features. The skull bones are considerably thicker than those of modern European or Neanderthal skulls; the skull pieces may be the oldest of Homo sapiens found in Europe. More recent opinion holds that the skull is non-sapiens and has closer affinities with those of Neanderthal type. There is a succession of artifact-bearing strata of the Mindel-Riss interglacial period (400,000-200,000 years ago), with the earliest tools of Clactonian type. Middle Acheulian handaxes and a pointed biface assemblage were found in the Middle Gravel level and in the Upper Loam level, Middle Acheulian tools of a more evolved form and a refined ovate assemblage. The deposits contain useful environmental evidence, including abundant mollusk and mammal remains and large assemblages of stone tools.
Syracuse: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Corinthian colony and principal port founded traditionally c 734 BC on the east coast of Sicily. The earliest occupation was on the island of Ortygia; later settlement was on the mainland in the Achradina area. Early Palaeolithic material occurs in the Great Harbor. Syracuse was the leader of Greek cities in Sicily and had many struggles with Athens and Carthage, becoming capital of Roman Sicily in the 3rd century BC. Siding with Hannibal in the Second Punic War was a mistake which led to a long siege by Rome. In the early Christian era, Syracuse became something of a religious center, and there are extensive catacombs. From the 5th century onward, the city's civilization disintegrated under the general chaos of the western empire. Surviving remains include the archaic Doric temples of Zeus and Apollo, Temple of Athena, the Greek theater, and a 3rd-century AD amphitheater. Evidence also survives for an extensive fortification system of Epipolae, a triangular-plan rocky plateau which was unified with the city in some 27 km of walling; the Fort of Euryalos was at the highest point.
Tarentum: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Colony of ancient Sparta in southeast Italy. It was founded in the late 8th century BC. Excavations have found Mycenaean pottery, tombs of the Archaic period with Greek pottery; and Apulian pottery and terra-cotta figurines produced in the Classical period. Rome put down resistance in Italy and took Tarentum by siege in 272 BC.
Tassili n'Ajjer: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tassili-n-Ajjer
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in southeast Algeria with famous but undated rock art covering most of the Saharan sequence. The art is in three styles -- archaic" paintings of large animal and human figures and geometric abstract symbols; a "naturalistic" style with humans and animals portrayed in great detail in scenes showing cattle running and herdsmen with bows; and a "cubist" style with dark shapes and light areas. Stone forms which were probably used as tomb sculpture have also been found at the Tassili site. There is much stone painting but not much stone carving or engraving. Scholars have been unable to decipher the hieroglyphic language that is engraved on the rocks."
Tautavel: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Caune de l'Arago
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cave site in the east Pyrenees-Orientales of southern France with Middle Pleistocene/Lower Palaeolithic deposits of pre-Mousterian date with little stratification. The front half of a skull with heavy brow ridges and robust facial features has been found, as well as two lower jaws, one much bigger toothed than the other. They are associated with an archaic Taycian quartz industry. Their date may be c 320,000-200,000 years ago.
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.
Thunderbird: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Thunderbird site
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Palaeoindian and Archaic campsites at Flint Run, Virginia, with a long-exploited jasper quarry. Core fragments, flakes, and broken or preformed tools show a large flint knapping industry. Occupations began in Clovis times through the Archaic. Postholes in association with living floors dated to c 9000 BC raises the possibility of this being the site of the earliest house structures in America.
Titterington culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Titterington Focus
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A non-ceramic Late Archaic culture of the Midwest, c 2500-1900 BC, with small hunting and processing camps, base settlements, and mortuary sites. The artifacts include bifaces and were not heat-treated.
Tocra: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Greek city in Cyrenaica, Libya, founded c late 7th century BC, with imported Archaic Greek pottery in votive deposits.
tumulus: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pl. tumuli
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A mound of earth or stones built over a burial -- most often a large, circular tomb. Tumuli were used for the burial chambers of Etruscan aristocrats in the Archaic period (6th-5th centuries BC), also in the Bronze Age, and later revived by the Roman emperors Augustus and Hadrian.
Umm Dabaghiyah: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Early 6th-millennium BC type site of the Umm Dabaghiyah culture, the earliest-known culture of the northern Iraq plain, a pre-Hassuna occupation of Mesopotamia. The small site has long buildings with rows of small cell-like rooms arranged around a central space. Some wall paintings have been recorded with hunting scenes -- something relied upon heavily for the economy. Domesticated sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs were also kept and some domesticated cereals are present, possibly imported. Pottery is abundant in all the four main phases and includes incised, burnished, plain, and painted types similar to 'archaic' Hassuna pottery. Other sites of this culture are Yarim Tepe, Telul Thalathat, and Tell es-Sotto (Tell Soto).
Veii: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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."
Veneti: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Illyrian people who came from the east and took possession of the region named for them (Venetia) in Italy c 1000 BC. The Venetic language is known from more than 400 funerary and votive inscriptions and from Classical writings. It is an Indo-European language of Archaic type bearing similarities to the Latin and the Germanic. The principal centers of the Veneti were Padua and Este. Their culture developed from the 9th century to the period of Romanization, with relationships with the Golasecca, Villanovan, and Etruscan cultures and with the transalpine Hallstatt culture. They peaked in the 6th-4th centuries BC and produced figured bronze situlae (conical vessels). The Veneti were horse breeders and peaceful traders and navigators. They protected by the waters of the lower Po and the lower Adige and preserved their independence against Etruscan expansion and Celtic invasion. In the 3rd century BC, they established a peaceful alliance with Rome.
Wairau Bar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Archaic Maori burial ground and midden site in the northern South Island, New Zealand, at the mouth of the Wairau River. The site is remarkable for its rich grave goods, including adzes, necklace units, and fishhooks -- similar to those from contemporary sites in the Marquesas and Society Islands. Dated to c 1100-1350 AD, Wairau Bar also produced perhaps the richest non-organic artifact assemblage of any site in New Zealand. It is from the Moa-hunter period.
Yarim Tepe 1: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Yarim Tepe
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Tell site of the Hassuna culture, with 13 levels spanning the Archaic through Standard Hassuna phases (6th millennium BC), near the Caspian Sea in northern Iraq. The ceramic sequences give much detail about the Hassuna culture. There is evidence of metallurgy, the smelting of copper and lead, and advanced potterymaking. Samarran elements appear and Halaf and Sassanian burials also occur. The Neolithic settlement was of the Turkmenian Djei-tun culture.

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