Archaeology Wordsmith
Results for daub:
- daub
- CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Clay which is smeared onto a structure of timber or wattle (interwoven twigs) as a finish to the surface. It is normally added to both faces of a wall and is used to keep out drafts and give a smooth finish. The material usually survives only when baked or fire-hardened, as would be the case if a structure burned down. It can usually be recognized by the impressions of the wattle to be found on its inner face. It was used by both Indians and European settlers in North America to construct houses. - wattle-and-daub
- SYNONYM: wattle; wattle and daub
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A building technique in which walls were made by plastering mud (daub, possibly with sand and plant fibers) over a lattice of branches and sticks (wattle). Interwoven twigs or thin split timbers were used. Though the wattle does not normally survive, its imprint is frequently preserved on the daub. It was used for, among other things, house walls, ovens, hurdles, fencing, and simple pottery kilns. - Almeria
- SYNONYM: Almerian
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A coastal province of southeastern Spain where a Neolithic culture lived in the 5th and 4th millennia BC (c 5500-4300 BC). The village of El Garcel is the typical of the hilltop agricultural communities with circular huts of wattle and daub (with hearths and storage pits), plain baggy pottery, and trapezoidal flint arrowheads. The pottery was of a Western Neolithic tradition, possibly deriving from North Africa. Single and multiple burials were in dry stone cists under round mounds, and thought to be ancestral to the corbel-vaulted tombs of the Copper Age. - Anza
- SYNONYM: Anzabegovo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large settlement of the First Neolithic and Early Vinca periods of Macedonia near the Bregnalnica River. Excavations have revealed a four-phase occupation c 5300-4200 BC. There was cultivation of emmer and wheat as well as some herding. The architecture was mud brick walls to wattle-and-daub timber-framed houses. The artifacts are similar to those found in northern Greece and the Anatolian Late Neolithic. - Basket Maker
- SYNONYM: Basketmakers
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Two early chronological periods of the early Puebloans or Anasazi -- 100-500 AD, followed by the Modified Basket Maker period, 500-700; They lived people in the Four Corners area (northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah, and northeastern Arizona) of the U.S. The origin of the Basket Maker Indians is not known, but it is evident that when they first settled in the area they were already excellent basket weavers and that they were supplementing hunting and wild-seed gathering with the cultivation of maize and pumpkins. They lived either in caves or out in the open in shelters constructed of a masonry of poles and adobe mud. Both caves and houses contained special pits, often roofed over, that were used for food storage. The Basket Makers were among the first village agricultural societies in the Southwest. Three Basketmaker stages were recognized at the 1927 Pecos Conference of Southwesternists: Basketmaker I (hypothetical), Basketmaker II (1--450 AD) which was a large base camp and widely scattered seasonal camps where the preferred container was the basket, and Basketmaker III (450--700/750) in which there were small villages of pit houses in well-watered valley bottoms. Specialized structures such as wattle-and-daub storage bins and large rooms for communal activity (possibly early kivas) also began to occur more frequently in the latter stage. - closing material
- CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Vegetal material used in roof construction, resting on beams and/or shakes, beneath mud, daub, or loose dirt. - Dublin
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The modern capital of Ireland (Eire) was founded by the Vikings, or Norsemen, in the 9th century (c 831) and built on the ridge above the south bank of the river, the same spot where Dublin Castle was built. Throughout much of the Middle Ages it remained one of the foremost sea ports in the British Isles. Viking Dublin was a prosperous settlement, and excavations begun in the 1960s revealed a wealth of archaeological evidence for that period. From prehistoric times people have dwelt in the area about Dublin Bay, and four of Ireland's five great roads converged near the spot called Baile Atha Cliath (The Town of the Ford of the Hurdle"). Remarkable waterlogged conditions have preserved organic material from levels dating to between the 9th-14th centuries. The footings of wattle-and-daub and timber-framed buildings have been recovered with door posts screens and hearths as well as timber streets. There is also abundant evidence of the crafts and industries from the Hiberno-Scandinavian and Anglo-Norman periods -- woodworking metalworking hooping combmaking leatherworking and cobbling." - Early Khartoum
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A base camp site within modern Khartoum which provided the first clear picture of the so-called 'Aquatic Civilization'. The site had traces of sun-dried daub suggesting the presence of temporary structures. Fishing done with bone-headed harpoons was the economic basis of the settlement. Other artifacts include chipped and ground stone and pottery with 'wavy-line' decoration. Dates of 6th or 5th millennium BC seems probable; similar harpoons at Tagra, to the south, are dated to c 6300 BC. - Erimi
- SYNONYM: Erimi-Bamboula
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A deeply stratified site in southern Cyprus, which has produced evidence of a sequence of pottery styles covering most of the 4th millennium BC. It is the type site for the Chalcolithic I Erimi culture, characterized by red-on-white pottery. The houses were first cut into rock, but later were circular huts of wattle and daub on stone foundations. The site is best known for its single copper chisel, the earliest evidence on the island for the use of the metal from which it derives its name. - Füzesabony
- CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The third stage of the early Hungarian Bronze Age, named after the Tószeg Tell in Heves. The Füzesabony culture of the 21st-19th centuries BC is the Hungarian version of the Transylvanian/Rumanian Otomani culture. Most known settlements are unfortified tells with wattle-and-daub timber-framed houses, sometimes with plank and beam floors. There are large cemeteries, usually with inhumation burial. Notable finds are antler cheekpieces for horse bits. - Ganj Dareh, Tepe
- SYNONYM: Ganj Dareh
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small mound in the Kermanshah region of western Iran, which has yielded five occupation levels with radiocarbon dates ranging from 8400-6800 BC. The lowest level had no permanent architecture, only shallow pits and hollows. The next level had mud-brick structures, mostly very small adjoining cubicles, perhaps used for storage. Subsequent phases include wattle-and-daub rectilinear structures and a wide range of unfired clay objects. Animal and human figurines suggest that the stone industry remained largely the same throughout. - Garcel, El
- SYNONYM: El Garcel
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Neolithic hilltop settlement in Almeria, southeast Spain, the type site of the earlier phase of the Almerian culture, c 5th millennium BC. Excavations have produced evidence of wattle-and-daub round houses, storage pits, undecorated round- and pointed-based pottery and, before the end of the settlement, copper slag, suggesting the local development of metallurgy. - grain impression
- CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A cereal grain which has been incorporated by chance in an artifact, such as pottery, bricks, daub, etc. The impression left in the clay may be clear enough for identification to be possible and thus provide useful evidence on the crops in cultivation at the time. On firing, or as a result of decomposition of time, the organic material is lost but its outline remains, often in great detail. Casts of these impressions are taken using latex rubber, and the original plant or animal may be identified. Before the widespread sieving and flotation of deposits began to yield large amounts of environmental evidence, these grain impressions were an important method of getting information on farming practices. - Hacilar
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small but important site in the lake region of southwest Turkey, with a Late Neolithic and early Chalcolithic (c 5600-4500 BC). The aceramic early levels have some radiocarbon dates in the 7th millennium BC. The houses were of mudbrick or wood and daub on stone foundations, with an upper story of wood. They were finished internally in plaster, rarely painted. Crops included barley, emmer, and lentils and bones of sheep, deer, and cattle were also found. The site was abandoned and reoccupied in the Late Neolithic, early in the 6th millennium BC, when it had more substantial houses, monochrome red to brown pottery, and some use of copper. Querns, mortars and braziers were fitted into mud plaster floors, while recesses in the walls acted as cupboards. The kitchen was separated from the living rooms and upper stories were used as granaries and workshops. Female figurines of a unique style were also made. The latest phase of this period was burnt c 5400 BC and when the site was reoccupied it was smaller; this settlement was also burnt c 5050-5000 BC. The Hacilar (Chalcolithic) period had a fortified settlement, characterized by boldly painted red on white pottery. - Hajji Muhammed
- SYNONYM: Hajjii Mohammad
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small early 5th-millennium BC site near Uruk in southern Mesopotamia which has given its name to a type of painted pottery and an early phase of the Ubaid culture (Ubaid 2). The pottery is painted in dark brown or purplish black in a geometric style. Hajji Muhammed pottery is found also at Eridu in layers stratified between the earliest Eridu pottery and the fully developed Ubaid culture. It is found over southern Mesopotamia, as far north as Ras Al-Amiya. The architecture was wattle-and-daub. - Inamgaon
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Pune of west-central India which depicts the 2nd millennium BC Malwa and Jorwe cultures of the northern Deccan. The Malwa phase had large rectangular, wattle-and-daub structures. By late Jorwe times, the structures were mainly small round wattle-and-daub huts. The area provides one of the clearest pictures of the region after the demise of the Indus civilization. - Jamestown
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The first permanent English settlement in the United States, in present-day Tidewater, Virginia. It was founded in 1607 by 105 settlers and served for a time as the capital of Virginia. James Fort, as it was first called, was built 15 miles inland from the Chesapeake Bay, on a swampy island in the James River on the site of previous native occupation. Many structures have been found as well as a huge inventory of 17th century artifacts. The earliest settlers subsisted by fishing, trade with natives and farming of both local (maize, squash, pumpkin) and imported staples. Houses from that time were of wattle-and-daub with thatched roofs, giving way later to structures of locally made brick. Pottery and glassmaking were other local industries. In 1699, Williamsburg became the capital of the colony, after which Jamestown went into decline and was ultimately abandoned. The excavations have documented early colonial life. - Karanovo
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in eastern Bulgaria which has given the basic chronological sequence from the Early Neolithic, and much of the Eneolithic, to the Bronze Age, 7th to mid 2nd millennium BC, of the eastern Balkans. There were seven major phases of occupation. Karanovo I is the earliest Neolithic and forms part of the complex of cultures that include Starcevo, Cris, and Körös. The architecture was wattle-and-daub and eventually the 50-60 early, scattered, square huts were replaced by rectangular, larger, plastered, and painted ones. Karanovo II also represents the First Temperate Neolithic level. Karanovo III has Middle Neolithic Veselinovo levels, with dark burnished and carinated pottery. Level IV is the Kalojanoven level and V represents Marica levels, with graphite painted wares and excised pottery -- both are contemporaneous with the Late Neolithic Vinca culture of the western Balkans. Level VI is the main Eneolithic Gumelnita occupation with graphite painted wares and copper metallurgy. Level VII is the Early Bronze Age level. Almost all the period designations have become known as cultures in their own right (e.g. the Karanovo III culture). - Maadi
- SYNONYM: 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. - Machalilla
- CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A series of early Formative Period sites on the coast of Ecuador of c 2000 BC, known chiefly through ceramics -- the distinctive Macalilla ceramic complex. Traded sherds found in both Valdivia C and Late Tutish-Canyno contexts suggest mid- to late 2nd millennium BC. Machalilla ceramics, in contrast to Valdivian, are painted (red banded and black-on-white) and figurines are rare and crudely made. Wattle-and-daub fragments in middens indicate that houses existed, but no foundations have been defined. - Manda
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a Swahili city-state apparently established in the 9th century and distinguished for its seawalls of coral blocks, each of which weighs up to a ton. Located in the Lamu Archipelago off the coast of Kenya, it had numerous stone-built (and wattle-and-daub) houses. Trade, which seems to have been by barter, was considerable, with the main export probably of ivory. Manda had close trading connections with the Persian Gulf -- Siraf in particular. It imported large quantities of Islamic pottery and, in the 9th and 10th centuries, Chinese porcelain. There is evidence of a considerable iron-smelting industry at Manda. - masonry construction
- CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: An architectural construction method in which stones are laid on top of one another. Dry-laid are stones laid without mortar, dry-laid/daubed are dry-laid with daub pressed into the joints, and wet-laid are stones set in wet mortar. - Molfetta
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Middle Neolithic settlement on the Italian Adriatic coast near Puglie, Italy -- in the 'Pulo di Molfetta' -- by an enormous collapsed cave. A Neolithic village and cemetery beside this provide a type site for the south Italian impressed ware, for which radiocarbon dates around 5200 BC have been obtained. In about 1600 BC a Bronze Age people, bringing an early version of the Apennine culture, occupied the floor of the depression and caves in its walls. It was originally a circular cave over 100 m across. An Early Neolithic village had small round huts with stone footings and wattle-and-daub walls. - Pueblo or pueblo
- CATEGORY: chronology; culture; structure
DEFINITION: In its capitalized form, a term for a stage in various chronologies of the American Southwest, typically spanning the time period from 700 AD to the 1700s and to a specific Native American group, culture, or site of this time. These Native Americans are believed to be the successors of the prehistoric Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon. The lowercased form is a term for village, applied to the sites in the American Southwest where Pueblo lived. Often these were apartment-like complexes of rectangular living rooms, built close together and often arranged in several stories or terraces, made of wattle and daub. This building style is especially associated with the Anasazi tradition. The chronological period followed the Basketmaker and was divided into five stages at the 1927 Pecos Conference: Pueblo I (700-850/900), Pueblo II (900-1100/1150), Pueblo III (1100/1150-1300), Pueblo IV (1300-1600), and Pueblo V (1600-1700s). - raw clay
- CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Extremely fine particles, less than 0.002mm across forming constituent components of natural and anthropogenic sediments and deposits. The plastic raw material from which pottery, daub, bricks, and other forms of terracotta are made comprising mainly clay-sized particles of the principal clay minerals kaolinite, illite, and montmorillonite. Potting clay is a relatively abundant and widespread resource, although the quality and characteristics of different outcrops vary greatly, the best being highly sought-after. - roomblock
- CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In the US Southwest, a single or double row of rooms made either of wattle-and-daub or masonry slabs. A roomblock either had a pithouse or kiva and its rooms were living quarters, storage, or for specialized activities. - Selevac
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Late Neolithic site of the Early Vinca culture (B-C phases) in the Morava Valley of northern Serbia, dating c 4300-3950 BC. The houses were of timber posts with wattle-and-daub walls. Subsistence was mixed farming (cattle husbandry and cultivation of emmer and bread wheat). Copper from the Rudna Glava mine was used alongside stone. - terra-cotta
- SYNONYM: terra-cotta
CATEGORY: artifact; structure
DEFINITION: Literally 'baked earth' or 'baked clay'; fired clay which is incompletely fired and still porous. It is used to make artifacts such as vessels, figurines, tablets, spindle whorls, loom weights, or net sinkers. It is a material from which much ancient pottery and other fired clay objects were made. It is also found as a structural material in hearths and kilns, where the clay of which they were built has been baked in use. A special variety of terra-cotta called 'daub' was produced only by accidental burning. Today, the term is applied to statuary, building materials, etc. rather than the better fired modern pottery. - Tutishcainyo
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the oldest sites in Upper Amazon, South America, with evidence of human occupation on Lake Yarinacocha in eastern Peru. The distinctive sand or shell-tempered pottery was decorated with incision the Early Tutishcainyo is dated to c 2500-1300 BC. There is also wattle-and-daub construction. - Wharram Percy
- CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Deserted medieval village in the valley of Yorkshire Wolds, England, documenting a peasant community between the Early Saxon period and the 16th century. There are rows of rectangular wattle-and-daub houses, two manor houses, and a 12th century AD church. The village was abandoned by the 14th-15th centuries.
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