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Results for crest:

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crest

CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A distinctive device representing a family or corporate body, borne above the shield of a coat of arms (originally as worn on a helmet) or separately reproduced, for example on writing paper

crested blade

CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flint blade with negative impressions of removals on one side of the dorsal surface, creating a crest. These constitute part of a previously worked striking platform or result from preparing the flaked surface on a core before detaching flakes or blades.

sagittal crest

CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The crest along the top of the skull where the chewing muscles are attached, found only in very large-jawed species. In primates that have large jaws and well-developed chewing muscles (e.g., gorillas, orangutans, and baboons), the parietal bones may be continued upward at the midline to form a sagittal crest. Among early hominids, Paranthropus (also called Australopithecus robustus) sometimes exhibited a sagittal crest.

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Apennine culture

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Apennine Bronze Age
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The Bronze Age culture of the Italian peninsula, lasting from c 2000-800 BC. The culture's pottery was distinctively dark and highly burnished, and decorated with incised and punctuated bands filled with white inlay. The handles, often single, were elaborate and included crested, horned, and tongue types. The people seemed to depend on pastoral economy and stock breeding in the mountains which give the culture its name. Trade and a more mixed economy has evidence at some sites -- Ariano, Liparis, Luni, Narce, and Taranto -- and the culture had some influence from the Balkans. Some inhumation cemeteries are known, but burials are rare. Bronze tools, though in use, are rarely found until very late in the period.

Capitolium

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Capitoline
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The principal hill at Rome and the one which acted as its religious center. The hill was the fortress and asylum of Romulus's Rome. The northern peak was the site of the Temple of Juno Moneta and the citadel. The southern crest, sacred to Jupiter, became, in 509 BC, the site of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the largest temple in central Italy. The Roman Senate held its first meeting every year because of the divine guidance" it received at the site."

Machu Picchu

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Inca site northwest of Cuzco, Peru, discovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, ingeniously situated on a hillcrest in the Andes overlooking a drop of 1,500 feet on either side. This ancient fortress city contains some fine, well-preserved stone buildings and is located in a mountain saddle between two peaks at a height of 7710 ft (2350 m), 2000 ft above the Urubamba River. The shrines and buildings are numerous and of unusual design, requiring much engineering skill and fine stone masonry. Many structures are arranged around courts in enclosures and with patios on terraces; the majority are single or back-to-back one-roomed buildings with niches symmetrically arranged on inside walls. Walls are inclined and doors, niches, and windows are trapezoidal in form. There are 16 finely carved fountains beside the main thoroughfare. The temple and citadel were once surrounded by terraced gardens connected by more than 3000 steps. One of the most striking buildings was the astronomical observatory. Machu Picchu was a walled fortified city with a steep stone stairway to its single entrance and was approached via a stone roadway connected to Cuzco. Excavations revealed an unusual number of female skeletons buried in caves on the steep rocky slopes, suggesting that the site may have been the refuge of the Chosen Women (Virgins of the Sun). A pre-Incan presence is suspected from a number of green schist 'record stones' found in the oldest part of the site. The Incas thrived from c 1400-1540 AD.

pebble tool

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pebble chopper
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A simple form of stone cutting tool, the oldest type of tool made by forerunners of modern humans. The tool consists of a rounded stone struck a number of blows with a similar stone used as a pounder, which created a serrated crest that served as a chopping blade. The core is only slightly altered by striking off a few small flakes. The most typical are choppers and chopping tools. These tools could be used as crude hunting knives, to grub roots, and for other purposes. The oldest examples are perhaps 2 to 2 1/2 million years old, from sites like the Omo Valley and Hadar in Ethiopia. Those found in large numbers in Olduvai Gorge, in Tanganyika, are universally accepted as eoliths, dating back man's history to 1,000,000 years ago. By a process of refinement these pebble tools developed into the handaxes of Africa, Europe, and southwest Asia, and into the chopping tools of the Far East.

Penmaenmawr

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Neolithic stone-ax-making site in England, with the remains of a Bronze Age stone circle located on the crest of a hill above the town. The axes were bartered over a large area in England.