Archaeology Wordsmith

archaeology editor/writer providing solutions for busy archaeologists

Results for etic:

archaeomagnetic dating: SYNONYM: archaeomagnetic intensity dating, archaeomagnetism, palaeointensity dating, archaeomagnetic age determination
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A chronometric method used to date objects containing magnetic materials -- especially for buried undisturbed features such as pottery kilns, earthen fireplaces, and brick walls -- which can be compared to known schedules of past magnetic alignments within a region and fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field. Clay and rocks contain magnetic minerals and when heated above a certain temperature, the magnetism is destroyed. Upon cooling, the magnetism returns, taking on the direction and strength of the magnetic field in which the object is lying. Therefore, pottery which is baked in effect fossilizes" the Earth's magnetic field as it was the moment of their last cooling (their archaeomagnetism or remanent magnetism). In areas where variations in the Earth's magnetic field are known it is possible to date a pottery sample on a curve. This method yields an absolute date within about 50 years."
arithmetic mean: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: An average; a measure of central tendency calculated by dividing the sum of observations by the number of observations.
cosmetics: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The earliest cosmetics known to archaeologists were in use in Egypt in the fourth millennium BC, with evidence among funerary artifacts of eye makeup and scented unguents. Both Egyptian men and women used oils, perfumes, and eye paints. By the start of the Christian era, cosmetics were in wide use in the Roman Empire.
electromagnetic spectrum: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The spectrum of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, with light being the visible part of the spectrum and heat another. There are parts of the spectrum which are not detectable by human senses but spectrophotometers can monitor all areas of the spectrum. Data can be analyzed and used to find and understand structures.
electromagnetic surveying: SYNONYM: electromagnetic prospecting
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A geophysical surveying method used to locate archaeological features and differences in sediment or soil textures. A pulsed induction meter or soil conductivity meter generate electromagnetic waves at the surface of the earth, penetrating it and inducing currents in conducting ore bodies, thereby generating new waves that are detected by instruments at the surface or by a receiving coil lowered into a borehole. This technique only works at a very shallow level, and no electromagnetic instrument is as accurate as the resistivity meter or a proton magnetometer.
empathetic method: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The use of personal intuitioin to seek understanding of the inner lives of other people, using the assumption that there is a common structure to human experience. This is used for interpreting prehistory and history by idealists and postprocessualists.
etic: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Referring to the perspective of the observer; a view external to the culture being studied. It is applied to concepts and distinctions that are meaningful and appropriate to the community of scientific observers.
Gangetic hoards: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Hoards of copper objects found in the Ganges basin in India. The main types of objects are flat and shouldered axes, bar chisels, barbed harpoons, antenna-hilted swords, hooked spears, and anthropomorphic objects. Associations with ochre-colored pottery suggest a date of the 2nd millennium BC.
general systems theory: SYNONYM: cybernetics
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A theory that human society can be studied as a system broken down into many interacting subsystems, or parts. It is the premise that any organization may be looked at to discover how its parts are related and how changes in either parts or their relationships produce changes in the overall system. In archaeological terms, the system might be the whole of a society's culture, or some part of it such as the economy or even a single settlement. Systems can be regarded as either open or closed; the latter have no input of energy or matter from the outside, tend to reach a state of stable equilibrium in which small changes can be offset, and eventually stagnate and disintegrate, while open systems have an input of energy from the outside, reach a state of unstable equilibrium in which any small change can produce significant transformations in the system as a whole, and are characterized by growth and change. The process by which a system tends to maintain equilibrium in the face of changed surroundings is termed homeostasis, while morphogenesis is the process by which the structure is changed or elaborated.
geomagnetic reversals: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: An alternation of the Earth's magnetic polarity in geologic time. It is an aspect of archaeomagnetism especially relevant to the dating of the Lower Paleolithic, involving complete reversals in the earth's magnetic field.
geomagnetic surveying: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of remote sensing that uses deviations in the earth's gravitational field to locate archaeological deposits.
geomagnetism: SYNONYM: geomagnetic sensing
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of the source, configuration, and changes in the Earth's magnetic field and the study and interpretation of the remanent magnetism in rocks induced by the Earth's magnetic field when the rocks were formed (paleomagnetism). The geological variant of archaeomagnetism.
hypotheticodeduction: SYNONYM: hypothetico-deductive explanation, hypothetico-deductive reasoning
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A type of scientific reasoning in which a hypothesis is made, predictions are deduced, and then the hypothesis tested for accuracy against archaeological data. Deductive reasoning is used to find and verify the logical consequences. Developed by Sir Isaac Newton in the late 17th century, it is a procedure for the construction of a scientific theory that will account for results obtained through direct observation and experimentation and that will, through inference, predict further effects that can then be verified or disproved by empirical (observed or experienced) evidence derived from other experiments.
laeti: SYNONYM: adj. laetic
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A term used for a class of non-Roman cultivators under the later Roman Empire (3rd century AD onward), who occupied lands for which they paid tribute. These barbarians were settled as farmers by the Roman government, in areas deserted after intrusive raids. They also had an obligation, inherited by their descendants, to perform Roman military service.
magnetic: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Of or pertaining to magnetism, the ability to be magnetized or affected by a magnet, or relating to the earth's magnetic field. Magnetism is a class of physical phenomena associated with the motion of charge, the attraction for iron observed in lodestone and a magnet. It is associated with moving electricity, exhibited by electric currents, and characterized by fields of force. It can be an electric current in a conductor or charged particles moving through space, or it can be the motion of an electron in atomic orbit.
magnetic dating: SYNONYM: paleomagnetic dating
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Any theoretically chronometric dating technique which uses the thermo-remanent magnetism of certain types of archaeological material. These methods use the known changes have taken place in the direction and intensity of the earth's magnetic field. Magnetic minerals present in clay and rocks each have its own magnetic orientation. When heated to the so-called blocking temperature, the original magnetic orientation of the particles is destroyed, and they will take on the orientation of the earth's magnetic field in a fixed alignment -- which does not alter after cooling. These methods are most suitable for kilns and hearths. Once the direction of the archaeological sample has been determined, it may be possible to date it by fitting it to the secular variation curve established for the local area. There is no universal curve, since not only the earth's main field varies, but there are also local disturbances. Since the dating of the curve has to be constructed through independent dating techniques, and these are not available for every area, there are not established curves for every region. As a dating technique, it is strictly limited to those areas where dated curves have been established. A more recent dating technique using thermo-remanent magnetism is palaeointensity dating (archaeomagnetic intensity dating). The principle is that the thermo-remanent magnetism in burnt clay is proportional to the intensity of the magnetic field acting on the clay as it cools down. The measurement of its intensity, and a comparison with the intensity revealed by reheating in today's magnetic field, gives a ratio for the past and present fields which can be used to establish a curve of variation in the earth's magnetic field intensity. The method promises to be useful since direction in situ is not required and it can therefore be used for pottery and other artifacts as well as hearths and kilns.
magnetic reversals: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A change in the magnetic direction of the Earth. It was discovered that volcanic lava flows, which like kilns and fired clay record the magnetism at the time they were hot, retained measurable magnetization in a reversed direction. Over the last 4 million years, magnetic direction changed at least 10 times. It switched to normal, as we know it, about 700,000 years ago. The direction of the dipole component reverses, on an average, about every 300,000 to 1,000,000 years. This reversal is very sudden on a geologic time scale, apparently taking about 5,000 years. The time between reversals is highly variable, sometimes occurring in less than 40,000 years and at other times remaining steady for as long as 35,000,000 years. No regularities or periodicities have yet been discovered in the pattern of reversals. A long interval of one polarity may be followed by a short interval of opposite polarity. These reversals have proved an important dating aid to archaeology.
magnetic surveying: SYNONYM: electromagnetic surveying
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique for the location of archaeological features adapted from techniques used in geological surveying. It is based on the fact that features with thermo-remanent magnetism, like hearths or kilns, or features with a high humus content, like pits or ditches, and iron objects, distort the earth's magnetic field from the normal. Instruments such as the proton magnetometer or the differential fluxgate gradiometer are used to measure those disturbances, and by plotting the results, a map of the features can be built. The ways in which the different types of feature distort the magnetic field vary, though they can all be picked up on the same instrument. Hematite or magnetic, present in most clays, have a small magnetic effect when unburnt, since the grains point in random directions and cancel each other out. Once heated to about 700? C or more, the grains line up, increasing the magnetic effect and causing an anomaly in the magnetic field. This thermo-remanent magnetism is also the basis for magnetic dating. The presence of modern iron as in wire fences can cause problems with this technique of location; if the area to be surveyed is clearly crossed with power lines or fenced with iron posts, a resistivity survey may be more suitable. The method of surveying used requires a grid to be measured out on the site and readings to be taken at regular intervals. The nature of the site may prevent such a grid being laid out, for instance if it is heavily wooded, and magnetic survey may not be possible on these sites. It is one of the most commonly used geophysical surveying methods.
magnetic susceptibility: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A property of soil and sediment, measured as a ratio of intensity of magnetization of the material to the strength of an applied magnetic field. Topsoil often has a somewhat enhanced 'magnetic susceptibility' due to magnetic minerals in the material, especially compared with the subsoil. The filling of a ditch or a pit has greater susceptibility than the surrounding area because of higher humus content and perhaps the presence of burnt occupation material. On the basis that contrast between feature and surroundings locates the features, walls, and other stone settings can also be located since they have less susceptibility than the area around them, i.e. they exhibit a reverse anomaly.
magnetite: SYNONYM: lodestone, magnetic iron ore
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A strongly magnetic form of iron ore, a major constituent of magnetitite and a common accessory mineral in igneous rocks. In the Mesoamerican region, magnetite was commonly mined and polished to make mirrors and compasses. It frequently has distinct north and south poles, and has been known for this property at least since 500 BC.
nomothetics: SYNONYM: nomothetic
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The search for general laws and principles of human behavior. The opposite of nomothetic is idiographic.
opus reticulatum: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A Roman construction technique consisting of blocks which are laid on a concrete core so that the edges are placed on a diagonal and produce a crisscross pattern. It is a technical term used by Vitruvius c 30 BC to describe the diamond pattern of square stones that was often used as a decorative facing to an inner rough concrete core. Opus reticulatum came into vogue in the 1st century BC and remained until the time of Hadrian (AD 117). The construction was like that of opus incertum but the pieces of stone were pyramid-shaped with square bases set diagonally in rows and wedged into the concrete walls.
phenetic dendrogram: CATEGORY: typology
DEFINITION: A tree diagram showing the relationship of individuals on the basis of observed similarity and difference, generally calculated in terms of taxonomic distance: the tree-form does not necessarily carry phylogenetic implications.
phonetic: SYNONYM: phonographic
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A term describing signs that express the sounds as opposed to logographic or ideographic signs and determinatives.
photosynthetic pathways: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: The process through which plants metabolize carbon, which involves three pathways to discriminate carbon-13
phylogenetic tree: CATEGORY: typology
DEFINITION: A tree diagram representing the descent and ancestry of an individual or group.
polythetic: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Pertaining to a group in which each of its members possess many but not all group characteristics, i.e. each characteristic is possessed by many members and no single characteristic is diagnostic of group membership.
polythetic definition: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A group or class consisting a large number of its members who share most of the characteristics. Though the group or class shares a number of common characteristics, none of them are essential for membership.
polythetic sets: CATEGORY: typology
DEFINITION: Groups defined by polythetic definition so that each member shares a significant number of characteristics with each other member but it cannot be predicted exactly which characteristics these will be.
Prezletice: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Lower Palaeolithic site just outside Prague, Czechoslovakia, with mammals of Cromerian type dated c 0.7 million years old. Artifacts pre-date the Middle Pleistocene; the assemblage includes chopping tools, crude bifaces, and flakes.
Psamtik: SYNONYM: Psammetichus, Psamtek
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Birth name given to three kings of the 26th (or Saite) Dynasty (664-525 BC): Psamtek I Wahibra (reigned 664-610 BC), who expelled the Assyrians from Egypt and reunited the country, founded the 26th Dynasty. Psamtek II Neferibra (reigned 595-589 BC), conducted an important expedition against the kingdom of Cush. Psamtek III Ankhkaenra (reigned 526-525 BC), was the last king of the Dynasty and failed to block the Persian invasion of 525 and was later executed for treason.
reticulated work: SYNONYM: reticulated porcelain; opus reticulatum
CATEGORY: structure; artifact
DEFINITION: In masonry, it is a type of facing used on ancient Roman concrete or mortared rubblework walls. It appeared during the late Roman Republic and succeeded the earliest type of facing, an irregular patchwork called opus incertum. Reticulated work looks like a diagonal checkerboard with its square stones set lozenge fashion, separated by relatively fine joints. In porcelain production, it is a technique in which the outer side is entirely cut out in geometric patterns, honeycomb, circles intercrossed and superimposed to a second vase of similar or of cylindrical form.
synthetic aperture radar: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A device which mathematically combines a series of radar echoes to generate an image by penetrating the ground and revealing hidden structures.
Tesetice-Kyjovice: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Lengyel culture site in southern Moravia. The circular enclosure had four entrances approximate to the cardinal points of a compass; two concentric palisades were within the enclosure.
theoretical statement: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A proposal or the development of a particular explanation or way of understanding human behavior and the effects of humans on the material world.
Unetice: SYNONYM: Unetice period; Aunjetitz; Unetician culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Bronze Age culture centered on Bohemia, Bavaria, Germany, Poland, and Moravia, named after a type site cemetery north of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Characteristic metal objects include ingot torcs, lock rings, various pins, flanged axes, riveted daggers, and the halberd. Regional groups include: Nitra, Adlerberg, Straubing , Marschwitz, and Unterwölbling (Austria). In late Unetice times, there is evidence of commercial contact with the Wessex culture of Britain and, via the amber route, perhaps with southeast Europe and the Mycenaeans. The Veterov culture of Moravia and the Mad'arovce culture of Slovakia, which had links with the Mycenaean world, are sometimes considered to be subgroups within the final Unetice tradition. Innovations of the culture include two-piece mold and use of tin to make bronze. The earliest Bronze Age center, Unetician A, consisted of a complex of flat inhumation graves with modest grave goods in copper and bronze. Unetice is an umbrella term for the local groups and is dated to c 1800-1500 BC.
Vikletice: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Corded Ware culture cemetery in Bohemia.
Adlerberg: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age culture in southwest Germany considered to be a variant of the Unetice culture. There were a number of flat inhumation cemeteries in which the burials included copper and bronze daggers and pins, flint tools, and one-handled pottery cups.
agora: SYNONYM: 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.
Akhenaten (reigned 1353-1336 BC): SYNONYM: Amenhotep IV, Akhnaton, Ikhnaton, Neferkheperure Amenhotep, Greek Amenophis
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The heretic pharaoh of Egypt's 18th Dynasty, who reigned with his queen Nefertiti towards the end of the New Kingdom. He was the son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiy. During his reign, he attempted to replace Egypt's religions with worship of Amen-Ra, the sun disk, represented by the god Aten (or Aton). The art and literature of Egypt also was marked by rapid change during his reign. He set the tone for a new era by establishing a temple at Karnak dedicated to Aten and moved the capital from Thebes to modern Tell el-Amarna in Middle Egypt, calling the city Akhetaten. His religious reforms were fanatical and foreign affairs were neglected and his reign saw the collapse of the Egyptian Asiatic empire built by earlier rulers. His successor and probable brother, Tutankhamen, returned Egypt to the worship of Amen-Ra and the capital to Thebes. Later rulers attempted to remove all record of Akhenaten's heresy and name. Akhenaten has been controversial both in ancient and modern times.
alleles: CATEGORY: flora, fauna
DEFINITION: Different sequences of genetic material occupying the same locus on the DNA molecule.
alphanumeric: CATEGORY: database design
DEFINITION: A field type that allows entry of characters and/or numerals but will not allow any arithmetic operations on them.
analysis: SYNONYM: analytical archaeology
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A stage in archaeological research design that involves isolating, describing, and structuring data, usually by typological classification, along with chronological, functional, technological, and constituent determinations. The research involves artifactual and nonartifactual data. The method evolved from the tendency to formalize the archaeological process, especially through the work of LR Binford, DL Clarke, and JC Gardin. Computer science and mathematics are used to elaborate the means for transforming simple descriptions of archaeological data into cultural, economic, and social reconstructions of earlier societies. This type of research is attempts to provide archaeology with a theoretical framework based on scientific method.
archaeological theory: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Any theoretical concepts used to assess the framework and meaning of the remains of past human activity. Such a theory is used to guide a reconstruction and an interpretation of the past by looking beyond the facts and artifacts for explanations of prehistoric events.
area excavation: SYNONYM: extensive excavation, open excavation, open-area excavation
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of excavation in which the full horizontal extent of a site is cleared and large areas are open while preserving a stratigraphic record in the balks between large squares. A gradual vertical probe may then take place. This method is often used to uncover houses and prehistoric settlement patterns. Area excavation involves the opening up of large horizontal areas for excavation, used especially where single period deposits lie close to the surface. It is the excavation of as large an area as possible without the intervention of balks and a grid system. This technique allows the recognition of much slighter traces of ancient structures than other methods. On multi-period sites, however, it calls for much more meticulous recording since the stratigraphy is revealed one layer at a time.
Aten: SYNONYM: Aton, Yati
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: The deity represented in the form of a sun disk and introduced as the sole gold by the heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten (Amenophis IV, 1353-1336 BC) during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, c 1350 BC. Akhenaten built the city of Akhetaton (now Tell el-Amarna) and established a temple at Karnak dedicated to Aten's worship. The sun god was depicted as the solar disk with rays terminating in human hands.
basalt: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A type of very hard, dark, dense rock, igneous in origin, composed of augite or hornblende containing titaniferous magnetic iron and crystals of feldspar. It often lies in columnar strata, as at the Giant's Causeway in Ireland and Fingal's Cave in the Hebrides. It is greenish- or brownish-black and much like lava in appearance. It is also abundant in Egypt and Greece.
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.
Basques; Basque: SYNONYM: Spanish Vasco, or Vascongado, Basque Euskaldunak or Euskotarak
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A people living in both Spain and France in areas bordering the Bay of Biscay and encompassing the western foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. The Basques are distinguished partly by an unusual pattern of blood groups, very high in the Rhesus negative factor, and by their language, quite unrelated to any other known one. They probably represent one of the people who inhabited Europe before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans. Basque is the only remnant of the languages spoken in southwestern Europe before that region was Romanized. The origin of the Basque language remains a mystery. It has been hypothesized that Basque had a genetic connection with the now-extinct Iberian and that both languages evolved from the Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) language group -- but there is another theory that the similarities between the two arose from geographic proximity. Although Basque and Iberian are similar, the knowledge of Basque could not help decipher ancient Iberian inscriptions discovered in eastern Spain and on the Mediterranean coast of France. Basque is also linked with Caucasian, the ancient language spoken in the Caucasus region.
bearings: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: A direction or relative position; a horizontal direction expressed in degrees east or west of a true or magnetic north or south direction.
Bethel: SYNONYM: Luz, Baytin (modern)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the ancient city of Palestine, just north of Jerusalem, occupied before 2000 BC to the 6th century BC. Bethel was important in Old Testament times and was associated with Abraham and Jacob. Excavations have been carried out by the American School of Oriental Research and the Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary. The most important levels were of the Late Bronze Age, a particularly well-built town of the Canaanites which was violently destroyed early in the 13th century BC, probably by the Israelites. After the division of Israel, Jeroboam I (10th century BC) made Bethel the chief sanctuary of the northern kingdom (Israel), and the city was later the center for the prophetic ministry of Amos. The city apparently escaped destruction by the Assyrians at the time of the fall of Samaria (721 BC), but was occupied by Josiah of Judah (reigned c. 640-c. 609 BC).
bleeper: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A surveying instrument that is a type of proton gradiometer, working on the same principle as the magnetometer. When two detector bottles are used, one near ground level and one about 2 m above, small magnetic anomalies underground affect the lower, nearer, bottle more strongly than the upper. The signals from the two get out of step, and their sound signal is broken into a series of 'bleeps'. It is unaffected by large scale disturbance, an advantage over the magnetometer, and is much simpler, cheaper, and more portable than either magnetometer or gradiometer.
bone measurement: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The measurement of bones to compare size and shape between different individuals. The dimensions of skeletal structures can be taken using a variety of calipers and other measuring equipment. Multivariate analysis is one method of comparison which helps to identify and distinguish bones by species and sex and for studying the genetics of groups of animals. Much work has been done in human skull measurement to investigate genetic relationships of ancient populations.
Branc: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site in southeastern Czechoslovakia of the Early Bronze Age where the burials were differentiated according to sex and the orientation was reversed from contemporary sites. At Branc, 81 percent of females were on their left side and 61 percent of males on their right. These mostly simple rectangular pits, sometimes with a wooden lining, of 308 inhumation graves spanning 200-400 years of the early Unetician culture were also analyzed for their grave goods. Within the graves there was clear evidence of community differentiation, with some individuals having more elaborate grave goods than others (on the basis of the rarity of the raw materials used and the time needed to produce the goods). This suggests that there would be leading families, and that wealth and status would tend to be inherited (ascribed) and there is evidence that each member of the community was placed according to lineage, sex, and age.
Breuil, Abbé Henri (1877-1961): SYNONYM: Breuil, Henri-Édouard-Prosper
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A French archaeologist who was regarded as an authority on prehistoric cave paintings of Europe and Africa. He devoted much of his life to studying examples of prehistoric art in southern France, northern Spain, and southern Africa. Breuil was a fine draftsman, and his greatest contributions were in the recording and interpretation of cave art in more than 600 publications. He proposed a series of four successive art styles, based on the superposition of paintings found in many caves, and held the view that the purpose of the paintings was sympathetic magic, to ensure success in hunting. Breuil fit the Aurignacian culture into its right place within the French Palaeolithic sequence and was responsible for working out the chronologies of French Upper and Middle Paleolithic periods.
caesium magnetometer: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A highly sensitive portable magnetometer that can detect minute magnetic variations, down to about one millionth of the earth's magnetic field.
Canaanite: SYNONYM: Canaan
CATEGORY: culture; site; language
DEFINITION: The original pre-Israelite inhabitants of an area encompassing all of Palestine and Syria, sometimes including all land west of the Jordan River and the coast from Acre north. The names Canaan and Canaanite occur in cuneiform, Egyptian, and Phoenician writings from about the 15th century BC as well as in the Bible. They were the branch of the Semites related to the Hyksos who occupied the Levant from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age, c 2000-1200 BC. In the south they were displaced by the Israelites and Philistines; in the north they were the ancestors of the Phoenicians. Their main significance in history lies in their role as middlemen and traders, through whose hands passed cultural influences between Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Hittites. Canaanite sites include Lachish, Megiddo, Byblos, and Ugarit. The Canaanites were responsible for the invention of the first alphabetic writing system.
carrying capacity: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The maximum population of a species that can be supported by a particular habitat or area with the food potentially available to it from the resources of the area, including the most unfavorable period of the year. The carrying capacity is different for each species within a habitat because of the species' particular requirements for food, shelter, and social contact and because of competition with other species that have similar requirements. Studies of both human and animal groups suggest that few populations reach such a theoretical maximum level, but adjust themselves to a size which allows a margin for fluctuations in the actual food production in the area. In archaeological terms, carrying capacity is the size and density of ancient populations that a given site or region could have supported under a specified subsistence technology.
cesium magnetometer: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A measurement tool used to detect large structures underground and their magnetic fluctuations by measuring the effects of transitions between atomic energy levels. It is considered more efficient than a proton magnetometer, which does the same thing.
Champollion, Jean-François (1778-1867): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French historian and linguist who founded scientific Egyptology and played a major role in the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics by deciphering the Rosetta Stone. A masterful linguist, Champollion started publishing papers on the hieroglyphic and hieratic elements of the Rosetta Stone in 1821-1822, and he went on to establish an entire list of hieroglyphic signs and their Greek equivalents. He was first to recognize that some of the signs were alphabetic, some syllabic, and some determinative (standing for a whole idea or object previously expressed). His brilliant discoveries met with great opposition, however. He became curator of the Egyptian collection at the Louvre, conducted an archaeological expedition to Egypt, and received the chair of Egyptian antiquities, created specially for him, at the Collège de France. He also published an Egyptian grammar and dictionary, as well as other works about Egypt.
compensating error: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: An instance when errors on a sequence of measurements or measurements subject to arithmetical operations tend to cancel out"."
critical theory: SYNONYM: Critical Theory
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A theoretical approach which was an attempt to adapt Karl Marx's ideas to an understanding of events and circumstances of 20th-century life. The relations between the assumptions and discoveries of a scholarly discipline and its ties to modern life are subject to examination, automatically relating the questions, methods, and discoveries of a science such as anthropology to those of the anthropologist's own culture. The theory claims that all knowledge is historical.
cultural drift: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A gradual cultural change due to the imperfect transmission of information between generations; it is analogous to genetic drift in biology.
cultural materialism: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A research strategy that assumes that technological, economic, and ecological processes are the components of every sociocultural system. Developed by Marvin Harris, an anthropological historian, who saw functionalism in the social sciences as being similar to adaptation" in biology. His work on the surplus controversy and ethnoenergetic exchange in primitive cultures led him to comparisons with medieval European economies in which he saw two distinct types feudalism and manorialism."
culture: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: In a general sense, the whole way of life of man as a species. In a more specific usage, it is the learned behavior, social customs, ideas, and technology characteristic of a certain people or civilization at a particular time or over a period of time (such as Eskimo culture). In this sense, a culture is a group of people whose total activities define what they represent and are transmitted to others in the group by social (mainly linguistic) -- as opposed to genetic -- means. Culture includes the production of ideas, artifacts, and institutions. In a more restricted sense (as in the term 'blade culture') culture signifies the artifacts or tool- and implement-making tradition of a people or a stage of development. Similar or related assemblages found in several sites within a defined area during the same time period, considered to represent the activities of one specific group of people is a culture. Cultures are often named for a particular site or an artifact. The word 'culture' in archaeology means a collection of archaeologically observable data; it is defined as the regularly occurring assemblage of associated artifacts and practices, such as pottery, house-types, metalwork, and burial rites, and regarded in this sense as the physical expression of a particular social group. This usage is especially associated with Gordon Childe, who popularized this concept as a means of analyzing prehistoric material. Thus the Bandkeramik culture of Neolithic Europe is an hypothesized social group characterized by its use of a particular type of pottery, houses, etc. The term, in reference to the specific elements of material culture, is most often used in the Old World.
cumulative error: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: A situation when errors in measurements or arithmetic operations are all positive or all negative.
cyclic agriculture: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A term describing a hypothetical process that may have existed among early agriculturists. Before the use of fertilizers and other efficient farming methods, cultivated land around a settlement lost its fertility over time and eventually becomes unproductive unless it is allowed to lie fallow for a while. An early farming site might have been exploited for a decade, and then left while the inhabitants founded a new settlement not too far away, farming that area for a decade before moving on again. Its use is suspected in certain areas, such as in Eastern Europe.
declination: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The difference between true and magnetic north. In astronomy, the angular distance of a body north or south of the celestial equator.
determinative: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An indication of which category of objects or beings is in question. In hieroglyphic writing, an ideographic sign next to a word phonetically represented, for the purpose of defining its meaning.
differential fluxgate gradiometer: SYNONYM: fluxgate gradiometer, differential fluxgate magnetometer, magnetometer
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A magnetic surveying instrument used in subsurface detection that records changes in the intensity of a magnetic field. Readings can be obtained continually rather than as individual spot measurements of a proton magnetometer. However, it is an expensive alternative to the proton gradiometer. Its electronics involve two detectors with mu-metal strips of a staff which is carried vertically; an initial pure sine-wave voltage is applied, and the difference in intensities observed between the two detectors corresponds to disturbance in the magnetic field cause by baked clay or buried features. These differences are displayed on the instrument's meter.
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."
evolution: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A theory of biology about the gradual or rapid change of the form of living organisms throughout time that reflects adaptive change; it is the theory that all forms of life derive from a process of change via natural selection. Its great exponent was Charles Darwin, whose The Origin of Species" appeared in 1859. It had an immediate impact on prehistory and the question of the antiquity of man. The Darwinian idea -- of species generally over-reproducing themselves and only the better-fitted surviving to pass on their superior adaptation to the next generation -- has been modified and amplified in the 20th century by new knowledge of genetics and especially of mutation and re-combination of genes. The newer view is often called Neo-Darwinism. Darwin's work laid the foundations for the study of artifact typology pioneered by such scholars as Pitt-Rivers and Montelius. The idea that the animals and plants of today originated from ancestors of a different kind goes back at least to early Greek philosophers"
excavation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The systematic and scientific recovery of cultural, material remains of people as a means of obtaining data about past human activity. Excavation is digging or related types of salvage work, scientifically controlled so as to yield the maximum amount of data. It is the main tool of the archaeologist. The excavation of a site, however, involves the destruction of the primary evidence, which can never be recovered. Excavation should therefore never be undertaken lightly or without an understanding of the obligations of the excavator to the evidence he destroys. The first decision is whether to excavate a site at all, a question of particular interest when sites are being rapidly destroyed by farming methods and road and town building. The nature and scale of the undertaking is the next decision. If time and/or money is short, sampling of the site may be all that is possible. If a large-scale excavation is to be undertaken, the approach will be either area (open) excavation, grid method, quadrant method, rabotage, sondage, etc. Removal of the topsoil will either be carried out by hand or machine. After an initial plan has been made of all visible features before excavation, digging proceeds according to the dictates of the site: sections may be taken across areas of feature intersection, or across individual features. A permanent record of the whole process should be kept: plans, drawings, notes, photographs. Excavation is only the first part of the process. For years, excavation was regarded as merely a method of collecting artifacts. Pitt Rivers in Britain and Petrie in the Near East first placed emphasis on evidence rather than artifacts, not what is found but where it was found relative to the layers of deposit (stratigraphy) and to other objects (association) -- the context. The excavator can only justify his destruction if it is done with meticulous care so that every artifact, be it an ax or a posthole, is discovered and if possible preserved; if it is recorded accurately enough for all information to remain available after the site has disappeared; and if this record is quickly made available by publication. In short, excavation is the digging of archaeological sites, removal of the matrix, and observance of the provenience and context of the finds therein, and the recording of them in a three-dimensional way.
experimental archaeology: SYNONYM: experimental studies
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The reconstruction and reproduction of past behavior and processes to obtain or evaluate archaeological data and test hypotheses about the way man dealt with subsistence and technology. The experiments involve such activities as creating and using stone tools, duplicating prehistoric methods of farming, building, and travel, etc. The term is normally used only for those experiments which deal with material culture, such as industry, the building of structures, mining, and crop processing. The more theoretical aspects, such as ideas about the development and organization of society, are generally thought of a part of processual archaeology rather than experimental. Reconstructions can be based on excavated ground plans, and some of these have been deliberately burned or left to decay so that an idea can be gained of what the archaeologist might expect to find later. Boats have been built and sailed, food has been cooked in earth ovens and eaten, stone monuments have been laboriously erected, and trumpets and stringed instruments have been made and played. Although past events are not exactly repeatable, experimental simulation can prove very instructive and is being increasingly used. One of the earliest examples was General Pitt-Rivers' observations of the rate and duration of ditch silting on his excavations at Cranbourne Chase in the 19th century.
floating chronology: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A chronometrically dated chronology which is not yet tied in to calendar years. A floating chronology is a decipherable record of time that was terminated long ago. The most common floating chronologies occur in dendrochronology where climate affects the growth of rings and sequences are local. Local sequences cannot always be tied to the master sequences established in certain areas from the present day back into prehistory, and therefore the local sequences will 'float' until some link with a known historical date is found. Similarly, in magnetic dating many of the sequences will float until some independently dated sites can be entered on the curve. The term is also used in reference to varve chronologies.
fluxgate gradiometer: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A magnetometer using two sensors in a light, self-contained instrument which produces a continous output and records differences in magnetic intensities on a meter.
gene: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The basic unit of hereditary information that occupies a fixed position on a chromosome, i.e. governed by the specific sequence of the genetic markers within the DNA of the individual concerned. Genes achieve their effects by directing the synthesis of proteins.
genome: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The collection of genes in the nucleic-acid core of a virus or the complete set of genetic material -- the chromosomes and the genes they contain -- that makes up any organism and determines hereditary features.
genotype: CATEGORY: flora; fauna
DEFINITION: Genetic composition of a cell or individual, as distinct from its phenotype.
geophysical prospecting: SYNONYM: geophysical survey
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The location and recording of buried sites by detecting variations in the magnetic properties or resistance to an electrical current of the soil. Many archaeological surveying techniques designed to identify features without excavation use instruments that measure physical properties of surface materials.
gradiometer: SYNONYM: proton gradiometer, fluxgate gradiometer, differential fluxgate gradiometer
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A geophysical device used to conduct surveys by measuring the gradient in a magnetic or gravitational field. This instrument is used to identify shallowly buried features and structures.
grid amplitude: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of defining the location of features and artifacts on a site by plotting from a reference point oriented to magnetic north or some other known point. Meridian lines run north-south and baselines run east-west on a grid square.
grinding stone: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Any lithic (stone) artifact used to process plant for food, medicines, cosmetics, or pigments. The grinding was done on a flat or concave surface.
haplogroup: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Any genetic lineage defined by similar genes at a locus on a chromosome
hearth: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: Any place where a pit was dug and a fire built, sometimes identified by charcoal, baked earth, ash, discoloration, or an outline of stones or clay footing. The site of an open domestic fire might have served as kiln or oven. Hearths often appear in one layer of soil after another as an archaeologist digs down through a site, and they are an indication of a succession of camps or habitations. Charcoal from a hearth can be dated by the radiocarbon method. Baked clay in a hearth can be dated by the palaeomagnetic method. Burnt earthen rims may provide oxidized material for archaeomagnetic dating. The hearth is often centrally located and has a variety of shapes and sizes.
holism: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Theoretical approach which seems change in human society as the product of large-scale environmental, economic, and social forces and discounting individual wishes, desires, beliefs, and will.
homology: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A type of reasoning by analogy, where two phenomena separated in time are similar because of an historic or genetic connection. In biology, similarity of the structure, physiology, or development of different species of organisms based upon their descent from a common evolutionary ancestor. Homology is contrasted with analogy, which is a functional similarity of structure based not upon common evolutionary origins but upon mere similarity of use.
Iberians: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A prehistoric people of southern and eastern Spanish coastal regions of the 1st millennium BC who later gave their name to the whole peninsula. In the 8th-6th centuries BC, waves of Celtic peoples migrated to the region. By the time of the Greek historian Herodotus (mid-5th century BC), 'Iberian' applied to all the peoples between the Ebro and Huelva rivers, who were probably linguistically connected and whose material culture was distinct from that of the north and west. There was a common script of 28 syllabic and alphabetic characters somewhat derived from Greek and Phoenician, and a non Indo-European language which cannot yet be translated. Notable among their products are their jewelry and statues, of which the Lady of Elche is the most famous. The Iberians' origins are obscure, perhaps North African. They disappeared as a separate group under the Roman occupation, partly by fusion with the Celts of the interior, partly through displacement of their language by Latin. The Iberian economy had a rich agriculture and mining and metallurgy.
infrastructural determinism: SYNONYM: infrastructure
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A research strategy used by cultural materialists, in which priority is assigned to modes of production and reproduction. Technological, demographic, ecological, and economic processes are the most important elements for satisfying basic human needs (the 'independent variable'); the social system is the dependent variable. These primary elements lie at the causal heart of every sociocultural system. Domestic and political subsystems (the 'structure') are considered to be secondary. Values, aesthetics, rituals, religion, philosophy, rules, and symbols (the 'superstructure') are tertiary.
inscription: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Something that is inscribed; the act of inscribing. It is writing or any type cut into or raised upon a hard surface -- clay, wood, stone, metal, etc. -- and therefore endures. Inscriptions on coins, medals, seals, currency notes, etc., may be done with symbolic picture writing, abbreviations, or phonetic alphabets.
instrument anomaly: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Any change in soil resistivity to an induced electric current or variations in the magnetic characteristics of soil due to human activities, such as pit or trench digging, wall construction, and fire.
iron: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A ductile, malleable, magnetic metallic element, used to make artifacts of both practical and decorative function. Its oxide form, hematite, is found naturally and the technique of ironworking was mastered around 1500 BC by the Hittites. Iron began to spread and replace bronze for man's basic tools and weapons -- the start of the Iron Age. Early in the 1st millennium BC, iron industries were established in Greece and Italy, and by 500 BC, iron had replaced bronze for the manufacture of tools and weapons throughout Europe. The pre-Columbian New World, however, did not develop iron technology. Iron smelting is more complicated than for copper or tin, since the first smelt gives only slaggy lumps, the bloom. Hammering at red heat is then required to expel stone fragments and combine carbon with the iron to make in effect a steel; the resulting metal is far superior to copper or tin. The two basic methods of working it are by forging -- hammering into shape at red heat -- and casting. The Chinese used the latter method as early as the 5th century BC, but it was not employed in Europe until the Middle Ages. The first evidence of iron smelting in Egypt dates to the 6th century BC. Large-scale steel manufacture depends on the production of cast iron, which in Europe dates only from the 14th century AD. The West did not enter the 'Age of Steel' until the 19th century with the invention of the Bessemer and Siemens processes, which are industrial processes for obtaining liquid metal of any desired carbon content by the decarburization of cast iron. Steel was made in China within a few centuries of the first known use of smelted iron. In principle, modern techniques descended from China's casting techniques.
isotopic fractionation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The enrichment of one isotope relative to another in a chemical or physical process. Two isotopes of an element are different in weight but not in gross chemical properties, which are determined by the number of electrons. It can be predicted theoretically and demonstrated experimentally, however, that subtle chemical effects do result from the difference in mass of isotopes. Isotopes of an element may have slightly different equilibrium constants for a particular chemical reaction, so that fractionation of the isotopes results from that reaction. One of the assumptions of radiocarbon dating is that Carbon 12, Carbon 13, and Carbon 14 are passed around the carbon cycle at similar rates. The three isotopes are chemically very similar, but slight differences between them may cause them to be taken up at different rates by some plants and animals. This isotopic fractionation may cause inaccuracies in radiocarbon dating. Both Carbon 12 and Carbon 13 are stable isotopes and their ratio should therefore remain constant throughout life and after death. If it has changed from the expected value, then fractionation has occurred. Once the degree of fractionation is known, it can be corrected for mathematically by the laboratory.
Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The third president of the United States and considered by many to be the father of American archaeology because of his meticulous excavation of a Virginia burial mound. Jefferson was the first person, in North America or anywhere, to undertake (1784) excavations of a prehistoric site as a means to understanding the people who built it. He wanted to find out why the burial mounds on his land had been built. One mound he excavated carefully with trenches, noting that in a number of levels that skeletons had been placed in the ground and covered -- producing a mound 12 ft (4 m) high. In observing the different levels, he was anticipating the stratigraphical method which became common practice in Europe and America only at the end of the 19th century. Worsaae's work in Denmark came a half a century later and the wider adoption of stratigraphical excavation methods was 100 years later.
Kausambi: SYNONYM: Kaushambi
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Ganges Valley of northern India which was a great urban center in the early historical period. Its earliest wall, of mudbrick faced with baked brick 12 m high, was built about 500 BC. Within it is a Buddhist monastery the fifth century BC where, according to an inscription, the Buddha himself stayed for a time. Of the same period is a building interpreted as a palace, with walls of stone rubble. The site has provided important information about the origins and development of the Gangetic Iron Age urban civilization. The earliest levels contain pottery related to the Ochre Colored Pottery horizon and are dated to the mid-2nd millennium BC. The second level has black-and-red, red, gray, and black wares and iron objects also appear, in the second quarter of the 1st millennium BC. There was Northern Black Polished Ware in the third level of around 500 BC.
Kisapostag: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early to Middle Bronze Age culture of western Hungary and Slovenia typologically contemporaneous with the late Unetice and Hatvan cultures. This Danube Valley culture dates to the early 2nd millennium BC, with a number of cemeteries in which inurned cremation is the characteristic rite. Kisapostag arsenical copper work is relatively rich and from its typological affinities with the Unetice metalwork of Bohemia.
Kroeber, Alfred Louis (1876-1960): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American anthropologist who made great contributions to American Indian ethnology; to the archaeology of New Mexico, Mexico, and Peru; and to the study of linguistics, folklore, kinship, and social structure. He was one of the small group of scholars whose work laid the basis of New World archaeology as a scientific discipline. His first work was in preparing a typological seriation of potsherds from Zuñi sites of the American southwest, and his work, together with that of Kidder and Nelson in the same area, showed how archaeological methods could reveal time depth and cultural change in North America. From 1921, Kroeber applied the same techniques to Max Uhle's Peruvian collections. He worked out a scheme for Peruvian archaeology which formed the basis of all studies of the subject for the next 20 years. Kroeber explored much of the Peruvian coast, especially the Nasca Valley where he made the first-ever stratigraphic excavation of a Peruvian midden. Kroeber continued to write about the ethnology of North American Indians and also concentrated on theoretical aspects of anthropology, in particular the processes of culture change. His Configurations of Culture Growth" (1945) sought to trace the growth and decline of all of civilized man's thought and art. "The Nature of Culture" (1952) was a collection of Kroeber's essays published on such topics as cultural theory kinship social psychology and psychoanalysis."
Lachish: SYNONYM: Tell Duweir, Tell ed-Duweir
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Palestinian Biblical site which was a Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age cave dwelling, after which the caves were used for burials and a settlement founded. A massive plastered glacis of Hyksos type belonged to the Middle Bronze Age settlement, but was destroyed by the Egyptians c 1580 BC. The Canaanites built three successive temples in the 15th-13th centuries BC. Lachish was sacked in 701 BC by the Assyrians, noted in the palace reliefs in Nineveh. It fell to Babylonians in 588 BC. There were later levels of Achaemenid and Hellenistic date. The site is most famous for three vital groups of inscriptions, including a dagger dated to the 18th or 17th century BC with four symbols engraved on it -- one of the earliest alphabetic inscriptions known. Lachish has also produced a group of incised pottery vessels associated with the temple at the foot of the mound and dated to c1400 BC, and a group of incised potsherds found within a guardhouse by the gate and dating to the period immediately before the Babylonian destruction.
Landa, Bishop Diego de (1524-1579): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Spanish Franciscan priest and bishop of Yucatán who is best known for his classic account of Mayan culture. His book Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan" is the primary resource for interpretation of Maya archaeology. Especially important was the calendar section recorded day and month names and rudimentary explanation of Katun. Landa was sympathetic to the Mayan people but he abhorred their human sacrifices. Landa in his religious zeal ordered all icons and Mayan books to be burned. At the same time he wrote his comprehensive work on Mayan culture his orders to destroy all icons and hieroglyphics obliterated the Mayan language forever helping to undermine and destroy the civilization he so vividly described. Yet his book which was not printed until 1864 provided a phonetic alphabet that made it possible to decipher about one-third of the Mayan hieroglyphs and many of the remainder have since been deciphered."
Later Stone Age: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The third and final phase of Stone Age technology in sub-Saharan Africa, dating from about 30,000+ years ago until historical times in some places. There was much art and personal decoration, evidence of burials, and in assemblages some microlithic stone tools. Pottery and stone bowls appear during the last three millennia as the lifeways changed to herding from nomadic hunting and gathering. The large number of distinctive Later Stone Age industries that emerged reflect increasing specialization as hunter-gatherers exploited different environments, often moving seasonally between them, and developed different subsistence strategies. As in many parts of the world, changes in technology seem to mark a shift to the consumption of smaller game, fish, invertebrates, and plants. Later Stone Age peoples used bows and arrows and a variety of snares and traps for hunting, as well as grindstones and digging sticks for gathering plant food; with hooks, barbed spears, and wicker baskets they also were able to catch fish and thus exploit rivers, lakeshores, and seacoasts more effectively. The appearance of cave art, careful burials, and ostrich eggshell beads for adornments suggests more sophisticated behavior and new patterns of culture. These developments apparently are associated with the emergence between 20,000 and 15,000 BC of the earliest of the historically recognizable populations of southern Africa: the Pygmy, San, and Khoi peoples, who were probably genetically related to the ancient population that had evolved in the African subcontinent.
Leki Male: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A complex of tumulus burials of the Unetice culture of southern Poland. The central burials are in stone cists with wood ceilings, covered with stone. Grave goods include bronze axes, daggers, and halberds; gold ornaments, amber ornaments, and pottery. These are similar to burials of the Wessex culture.
Leubingen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Bronze Age chieftain's burial of the Unetice culture of Saxony, Germany. It consisted of a lean-to wooden mortuary chamber under a stone cairn, itself covered by a barrow. Inside was the burial of an extended elderly male and, placed at right angles across him, a second body, of an adolescent, perhaps female. Grave goods included a series of gold ornaments (pins, spirals, hair-rings, beads, earrings, and an arm-ring), bronze daggers, axes, halberds, and chisels; stone tools, and pottery.
level: CATEGORY: tool; term
DEFINITION: An instrument used in surveying which takes vertical measurements and which is much used in excavation for the recording of site contours and accurate depths of features, especially for making maps and identifying the location of artifacts. There are several types of leveling instrument, the Y or dumpy level, the tilting level, and the self-leveling level. Each consists of a telescope fitted with a spirit level and, generally, mounted on a tripod. It is used in conjunction with a graduated rod placed at the point to be measured and sighted through the telescope. The theodolite (q.v.), or transit, is used to measure horizontal and vertical angles; it may be used also for leveling. The differences between the types are in the ease of leveling: the first has a single spirit level for the whole instrument, the second a separate spirit level for spindle and telescope with a tilting mechanism and adjustable screw on the telescope, and the third an optical part operated by a pendulum so that the line of sight is always horizontal. Having established a datum point, the instrument is sighted on a leveling staff or rod which is marked in a graduated scale, metric, or imperial. The difference in level between the telescope and the base of the rod can be read off on this scale, and the result subtracted from the height of the level itself above ground; the final figure gives the real height, or depth, of the feature above or below the ground at instrument point. Subtracting the stadia rod reading from the height of the level above the ground surface gives the difference in height between ground surface at the instrument station and the ground surface at the datum point. A series of levels taken across a site will give contours, while excavated features and small finds can be leveled in with greater accuracy than with tapes from a hypothetical ground surface. The term is also used to refer to the actual height measurements taken with such an instrument. More generally, archaeologists often use the term 'level' interchangeably with layer. In excavations the remains are divided into levels that contain the buildings and objects belonging to a phase.
ley line / ley-line: SYNONYM: ley
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A hypothetical straight line connecting prehistoric sites, frequently regarded as the line of an ancient track and credited by some with paranormal properties. The term also refers to the alignment of diverse features, usually taken from small-scale maps rather than from the ground, assumed to have some ancient esoteric significance.
Luwian: SYNONYM: Luvian, Luish
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An extinct Indo-European language primarily of the western and southern part of ancient Asia Minor of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, especially important to Arzawa. It was closely related to Hittite, Palaic, and Lydian and was a forerunner of the Lycian language. Knowledge of Luwian comes from cuneiform tablets discovered in the ruins of the Hittite archives at Bogazköy (modern Turkey). The pioneering work on Cuneiform Luwian was done by Emil Forrer in 1922. In addition to Luwian passages in the cuneiform tablets, a number of inscriptions occur in a hieroglyphic system of writing that originated with the early Hittite stamp seals of the 17th and 18th centuries BC. Hieroglyphic Luwian (often called Hieroglyphic Hittite) texts have been found dating from as late as the last quarter of the 8th century BC. The language was deciphered in the 1930s. More was learned about the meaning of the writing after the discovery of the Karatepe bilingual inscriptions, written in both Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician. The Lycian language of about 600-200 BC, written in an alphabetic script, is believed to be descended from a West Luwian dialect. Luwian was probably the language of the Trojans during Trojan War. The language survived in southwest Turkey until the Roman period.
macrofamily: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A classification in linguistics for a group of language families with sufficient similarities to suggest they are genetically related.
Mad'arovce: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Bronze Age regional group of the central Danube basin in western Slovakia and dated to the mid-2nd millennium BC. A large number of sites are hilltop settlements fortified by earthen banks or ditches. Tell-like multi-phase settlements are also known from lowland valleys, often with rich assemblages of dark burnished pottery. Mixed burial rites, sometimes inhumation, sometimes cremation, are known from the medium-sized lowland cemeteries. The culture emerged towards the end of the neighboring Unetice culture and may have been a late sub-group of that culture.
magnetometer: SYNONYM: proton magnetometer
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A geophysical instrument that measures the intensity and sometimes direction of the Earth's magnetic field. It is used in electromagnetic surveying to identify changes in the field within soil or sediment that might be caused by subsurface features, hearths, kilns, or metal artifacts. When a current is passed through a coil in a bottle of water or alcohol the protons of the hydrogen atoms align themselves to its magnetic field. When the current is cut off, the protons realign themselves according to the earth's field, its strength being indicated by the frequency of their gyration on realignment. This sets up a weak current which is transmitted back from the bottle to the instrument and there registered on dials. The resulting figures are plotted to reveal anomalies in field strength -- usually due to buried iron, kilns, hearths, or to pits or ditches. These features can thus be rapidly located without disturbance of the ground, and excavation can be directed to the most promising areas. Magnetrometry is the use of a magnetometer for mapping subsurface anomalies. There are a number of designs, but two are particularly widely used. The proton magnetometer makes an absolute measurement of field strength, but is intermittent in operation: each reading is initiated by the push of a button, and takes some seconds to appear on the display of the instrument. Fluxgate magnetometers work on a different principle, and give a continuous reading, which makes surveying less time-consuming. Most fluxgate machines do not however measure field strength directly, but rather are gradiometers, measuring the vertical gradient of the earth's' magnetic field, i.e. how fast the field strength changes with vertical distance from the earth's magnetic field Gradient measurements can also be used in archaeological surveys and have an advantage over absolute measurements. The earth's field strength varies continuously during the day at any one location. Absolute measurements taken at different times have to be calibrated for this effect if they are to be comparable. Gradient measurements are not affected by this diurnal drift in field strength, and so do not need to be calibrated. Proton gradiometers are also available. The fluxgate, differential fluxgate, and proton gradiometer take continuous measurements of relative vertical change in the intensity of field strength.
magnetometry: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Detecting buried remains through magnetic variations between them and the surrounding soil.
malachite: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A minor ore but a widespread mineral of copper; basic copper carbonate, green in color. It was first employed as a cosmetic and ointment for the eyes, to cut down the glare of the sun and discourage flies. The discovery that metal could be obtained from it was probably accidental and then it was used as a source of copper. The extensive deposits in Sinai were much exploited in antiquity. It was also used for oils and water colors and encrusted upon other materials as ornament.
mean: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: In mathematics, a quantity that has a value intermediate between those of the extreme members of some set. In archaeological technique, it is a measure of central tendency in a distribution. The arithmetic mean is the sum of all values, divided by the number of cases. Other measures of central tendency include the mode -- the most commonly occurring value -- and the median -- the value in the middle of the distribution's range.
metal detector: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A geophysical instrument used in electromagnetic surveying to locate metal on the surface, hidden under vegetation, or shallowly buried. Some metal detectors can be programmed to detect only artifacts of a certain alloy.
methodological individualism: SYNONYM: individualistic method
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The theoretical principle that all group economic or political activity can be traced back to, and explained by, the behavior of individuals. An approach to the study of societies which assumes that thoughts and decisions do have agency, and that actions and shared institutions can be interpreted as the products of the decisions and actions of individuals.
Minoan: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The Bronze Age civilization of Crete, a name coined by Sir Arthur Evans derived from the legendary ruler of Knossos, Minos. The civilization is divided into three phases: Early (c 3000-2000 BC), Middle (c 2000-1550 BC), and Late (c 1550-1050 BC). Each had three subdivisions marked with Roman numerals. They stand out as the first civilized Europeans, with a highly sophisticated way of life and material equipment, and were surprisingly modern. They probably represented a fusion between Anatolian immigrants and the native Neolithic population, with some trading contacts through the east Mediterranean. In the Middle Minoan period, urbanization became apparent, towns appeared and, a Minoan specialty, the first of the great palaces, Knossos, Mallia, and Phaestos. Overseas trade was greatly expanded, too. The height of its development was in the 18th-15th centuries BC. By about 1580 BC Minoan civilization began to spread across the Aegean to neighboring islands and to the mainland of Greece. Minoan cultural influence was reflected in the Mycenean culture of the mainland, which began to spread throughout the Aegean about 1500 BC. The palaces were destroyed c 1450, probably by the cataclysmic eruption of Santorini/Thera -- or by conquerors from the mainland. After that, Greek-speaking Mycenaeans gained control of Knossos and Crete; only Knossos was reoccupied on a significant scale. The final fall of Knossos, c 1400 BC, marked the end of Crete's period of greatness. Their Linear A script has not been deciphered, but Linear B has been successfully translated as an early form of Greek, written in a syllabary, but belongs only to the period of mainland domination, and is therefore more relevant to Mycenaeans than Minoans. Their pottery is among the most artistic of any place or time, using abstract curvilinear, floral, and marine designs. Craftsmen reached high levels of technical skill and aesthetic achievement in pottery, metal work, stonework, jewelry, and wall painting (the palaces are lavishly decorated with frescoes). Vessels, figurines, and magnificent seal stones were also carved in stone and bronze and gold objects made. There were many bull sporting events. Cult activities normally took place either in hilltop shrines, often in caves, or in small shrines within the palaces, and often involved animals, including goats and especially bulls. There is an alternative division of the Minoan civilization into Prepalatial (Early Minoan I-III), Protopalatial (Middle Minoan I-II), Neopalatial (Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan IIIA1), and Postpalatial (Late Minoan IIIA2-IIIC).
mitochondrial DNA: SYNONYM: mtDNA
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The genetic material inside the mitochondrian, an energy-producing unit of a cell, which has been studied to calculate the antiquity of modern humans. Some mtDNA studies suggest that modern humans arose first in Africa around 200,000 years ago. Investigations of human mitochondrial DNA reveal that the variation among modern human populations is small compared, for example, with that between apes and monkeys, which points to the recency of human origin. Research also points out that there is a distinction between African and other human mitochondrial DNA types, suggesting the substantial antiquity of the African peoples and the relative recency of other human populations.
model: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A devices used by archaeologists to aid the interpretation of data; models consist of hypothetical reconstructions of dynamic processes partly based on material remains and partly testing the validity of interpretations of material culture. They are idealized representations of the real world, used to demonstrate a simplified version of some of its characteristics. Models vary in complexity and can be physical representations or literary descriptions. It might be a physical model of a site or landscape to explain some feature of its function or organization; such models at full scale are well known in experimental archaeology. A simple model might be a map showing, for example, the distribution of sites in a region or a scatter diagram showing the relationship between two measured variables. Models need not be based on specific archaeological data, but can be derived from a number of sources: invented data can be generated by computer simulation; geometrical and mathematical models can also be used, such as central place theory or the rank-size rule in the study of regional settlement, or catastrophe theory in the study of cultural collapse. General systems theory can also be a source of systems models designed to show a simplified version of the working of a complex social or economic organization. The term model can also be used in a less specific sense for any general mode of thought in which archaeological research is conducted, for example descriptive, historical, or ecological. Models may also be diachronic or synchronic. The concept of formulating a model, testing it and refining it, is frequently applied in a non-mathematical way and this is the way in which it is most often used in archaeology. In this sense it is either synonymous with 'hypothesis' or refers to a number of interlocking hypotheses.
molecular archaeology: CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: A subset of archaeology where genetic information in ancient human remains is used to reconstruct the past
Montet, Pierre (1885-1966): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French Egyptologist who worked at Tanis and Byblos. He conducted major excavations of the New Empire (c 1567-525 BC) capital at Tanis, in the Nile Delta, discovering, in particular, funerary treasures from the 21st and 22nd dynasties. At his first major excavation at Byblos (modern Jubayl, Lebanon), one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world, he found what was then believed to be the earliest alphabetical writing and published his researches in Byblos et l'Égypte" (1928). He published "La Nécropole royale de Tanis" 3 vol. (1947-60; "The Royal Cemetery at Tanis") and "Everyday Life in the Days of Ramesses the Great" (1958) and "Eternal Egypt" (1964)."
Nagyrév: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The type site for a regional group of the Hungarian Early Bronze Age; the initial culture in the tripartite sequence distributed in the lowlands of northern Hungary, dated to c 2300-1500 BC. This first phase shows connections with the Beaker and Vucedol cultures, while the later phase is contemporary with early Unetice. The Nagyrév precedes the Hatvan and Füzesabony. Most known settlement sites are tells surrounded by enclosing banks and ditches. Timber-framed houses are common, though some clay houses are found at Tószeg. Rich grave goods are rare, occurring predominantly in the Budapest area. A universal pottery form is the one- or two-handled cup with tall funnel neck in black burnished ware.
natural selection: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The mechanism that leads to differential survival and reproduction of those individuals suited to a given environment in contrast to other less well adapted. It is the process that results in the adaptation of an organism to its environment by means of selectively reproducing changes in its genotype, or genetic constitution. Natural selection enhances the preservation of a group of organisms that are best adjusted to the physical and biological conditions of their environment and may also result in their improvement in some cases.
numerical taxonomy: SYNONYM: cluster analysis; taximetrics
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A set of mathematical procedures for grouping individual items into classes. The technique used is cluster analysis, which produces groupings of items based on their degree of similarity. There are different ways of measuring the similarity between items, and different techniques of producing clusters from such measurements. Agglomerative techniques start with the most similar items and repeatedly add new members to existing clusters as the standard of similarity is lowered; divisive methods, on the other hand, start with the entire collection to be classified and repeatedly subdivide into smaller groups on the basis of certain attributes. The results of the analyses can be shown in the form of a dendrogram, but the interpretation of the groupings produced will depend on a detailed assessment of the archaeological data itself. Numerical taxonomy is also the multivariate analysis of many measurable features (taxonomic characters) to produce a biological classification. Because of the complexity of the analysis, the use of a computer is virtually mandatory. No attempt is made, as in evolutionary taxonomy, to weight characters on the basis of their presumed roles in natural selection. For this reason, numerical taxonomy produces a classification that reflects phenetic distances i.e., degrees of similarity. Such classifications are rejected by many conventional taxonomists who feel that the relationships expressed in a classification should be strictly evolutionary. The numerical evaluation of the affinity or similarity between taxonomic units and the ordering of these units into taxa on the basis of their affinities is used often in archaeology.
Ochre-Colored Pottery: SYNONYM: Ochre Colored Pottery; OCP
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: An Indian pottery type, a distinctive ceramic of post-Harappan upper Ganges Valley. It is a thick and usually badly fired and badly preserved red ware with an ochre wash and its importance lies in the fact that it serves to bridge the gap in the later 2nd millennium between the Harappan material of the Indus Civilization and the black-and-red and painted-gray wares of the Iron Age. The earliest date for the ware comes from Jodhpura in Rajasthan c early 3rd millennium BC, but in the upper Ganges Valley it has early 2nd millennium BC dates. It has been found in association with a harpoon of Gangetichoard type at Saipai and with Gangetic hoards.
Omo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A river basin in Ethiopia north of Lake Turkana, where fragmentary remains of Australopithecus and early Homo have been found. The same deposits have produced flakes of imported quartz, 2.4-2 million years, the oldest securely dated artifacts. The site is of outstanding importance as a basis for dating other sites throughout Africa, because its time-scale is unusually well fixed by palaeomagnetic studies, potassium argon dates, and faunal comparisons.
one-sample test: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: A statistical test of the comparison of a sample statistic with a known or hypothetical parameter value.
open excavation: SYNONYM: area excavation; open-area excavation, extensive excavation
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The opening up of large horizontal areas for excavation, used especially where single period deposits lie close to the surface. It is the excavation of as large an area as possible without the intervention of balks and a grid system. This technique allows the recognition of much slighter traces of ancient structures than other methods. On multi-period sites, however, it calls for much more meticulous recording since the stratigraphy is revealed one layer at a time. In this method of excavation, the full horizontal extent of a site is cleared and large areas are open while preserving a stratigraphic record in the balks between large squares. A gradual vertical probe may then take place. This method is often used to uncover houses and prehistoric settlement patterns.
optimal foraging theory: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The theory that an animal's efficient foraging behavior should maximize an animal's net rate of food intake. It is a theoretical perspective used in evolutionary biology that attempts to develop a set of models to apply to a broad range of animal species based on theories of optimal net rates of energy gain.
Otomani: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age culture of eastern Hungary, northwestern Romania, and eastern Slovakia, dating to the period 2000-1600 BC, and shows connections with Unetice. It is the equivalent of the Hungarian Füzesabony group in the central Hungarian sequence. A high proportion of Otomani settlements are artificially or naturally fortified (Barca, Spissky Stvrtok), often by the use of water, and tells are frequent. The type site, near Marghita, is a citadel overlooking the eastern edge of the Hungarian plain. Black burnished ware with bossed decoration on one-handled cups is the most frequent pottery type. The ceramics feature large, pointed bosses. Bronze artifacts are elaborately ornamented.
Palaeoasiatic: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A theoretical early 'race' of Homo sapiens sapiens in northeastern Asia. This race included the postglacial Chulmun and Jomon inhabitants of Korea and Japan and the modern Ainu. The far northeastern region of Siberia is the home of the so-called Paleoasiatic peoples, including the Chukchi, Koryak, Itelmen, and Yukaghir. The term also refers to a language group; the languages of the indigenous peoples of the Eurasian Arctic and subarctic can be grouped into four classes: Uralic, Tungusic, Turkic, and Paleoasiatic.
paleomagnetism: SYNONYM: palaeomagnetism, remanent magnetism; paleo-magnetism, palaeo-magnetism; archaeomagnetism
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The magnetic polarization acquired by the minerals in a rock at the time the rock was deposited or solidified. The permanent magnetism in rocks, resulting from the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field at the time of rock formation in a past geological age. It is the source of information for the paleomagnetic studies of polar wandering and continental drift. The field of paleomagnetism involves techniques for determining the age of rocks by analyzing the magnetic field polarity of certain minerals in the rock and its importance in archaeology lies in its use as a dating method. The ancient orientation and intensity of the earth's magnetic field is preserved by the magnetization of iron oxides in rocks and sediments and archaeological materials (archaeomagnetism). Ancient direction and intensity of the earth's magnetic field may be preserved in three ways: a) thermoremanet magnetism (T.R.M.) works through the alignment of the magnetic domains within iron minerals when heated to above the Curie point and subsequently cooling, b) detrital remanent magnetism works through the alignment of clay particles sinking down slowly through still lake or deep ocean water. A block of sediment is magnetized in the direction of the earth's field at the time when it was deposited., and c) sun-dried bricks as the bricks become magnetized in the current direction and intensity of the earth's field. Using igneous rocks, independently dated by potassium/argon, and kilns, hearths, pots etc. dated archaeologically, it has been possible to reconstruct something of the history of the earth's magnetic field. Palaeomagnetism proper is done by studying reversals in the magnetic field of the Earth, the youngest reversal dating to 700,000 bp. Measurement of the declination and inclination of the magnetic poles as it affects materials of different ages can be used to build regional chronologies. Palaeomagnetic dating has also been successfully applied to lacustrine deposits, deep sea cores, and volcanic rocks.
palette: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small slab of stone for grinding and mixing substances like paint or cosmetics. A series from early Egypt, as that of Narmer, is important since the relief decoration provides valuable evidence on the art and history of the country at the beginning of Dynastic times, c 3000 BC. The term is also used to describe scribal palettes. Cosmetic/ceremonial palettes were usually of siltstone (greywacke) and are found in grave goods as early as Badarian period (c 5500-4000 BC). Scribal palettes, long rectangular pieces of wood or stone (averaging 30 cm long, 6 cm wide), had a shallow central groove or slot to hold reed brushes or pens and circular depressions for cakes of pigment. The order of colors was white, then yellows, reds, blues, to black.
Palmela: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery of four Copper Age (Chalcolithic) rock-cut tombs in Setúbal, Portugal, near Lisbon. Each has a kidney-shaped chamber, originally used for collective inhumation, entered by a long passage or through a hole in the roof. The cemetery forms the type site of a culture flourishing in central Portugal c 3800-3200 BC. A variety of amuletic objects in stone includes decorated plano-convex or cylindrical stylized human figurines, crescents, model hoes or adzes, and a pair of sandals from Alapraia. Stonework follows Neolithic traditions, but adds deeply concave-based arrowheads. The tombs were rich in Beaker material, including 50 beakers with copper knives and fragments of gold foil. Pottery, too, follows on from the Almeria culture, though foreign elements have been connected with the dark-slipped Urfirnis ware of Greece. There is also a distinctive type of arrowhead with near-circular copper blade and long tang, the Palmela point. The settlements are likely a variant of the Vila Nova de Sao Pedro culture.
parallel flaking: SYNONYM: collateral flaking
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A secondary flaking technique that is often found on the earliest projectile points and stone tools, usually performed on the blade faces, in which the removal of flakes was performed in such a manner to remove flakes of similar size, depth, length and direction to result in flake scars which are parallel. Typically the mark of a well accomplished flint knapper. Such flake scars are found only on few specimens and can be quite aesthetically beautiful to behold.
phenotype: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A biological type determined by the visible characters common to a group as distinguished from their hereditary characters. It is all the apparent characteristics of an organism, such as shape, size, color, and behavior, that result from the interaction of its genotype (total genetic heritage) with the living environment. The common type of a group of physically similar organisms is sometimes also known as the phenotype. Individuals of different genotypes can thus manifest similar phenotypical characteristics.
physical anthropology: SYNONYM: biological anthropology
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A subdiscipline of anthropology that views humans as biological organisms, studying human biological or physical characteristics and their evolution. Study includes fossil human beings, genetics, primates, and blood groups. It is one of the two major subdivisions of anthropology.
Piette, Edouard (1827-1906): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French prehistorian who excavated many caves in the Pyrenees and was the first to recognize the Azilian culture, bridging the gap between the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. He was a pioneer in accepting the authenticity of Altamira's art and worked at Le Mas D'Azil and Brassempouy. He amassed the greatest collection of Palaeolithic portable art for the French government. He was the author of various classificatory schemes for prehistory, subdividing the Palaeolithic period into three, the Amydgalithic, Niphetic and Glyptic periods (approximately equivalent to the Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic), but this system was never very widely adopted.
Pitt-Rivers, General Augustus Lane-Fox (1827-1900): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British scholar and pioneer in archaeological excavation and recording, working on prehistoric and Romano-British sites in England. His large-scale excavations unearthed villages, camps, cemeteries, and barrows at sites such as Woodcutts, Rotherley, South Lodge, Bokerly Dyke, and Wansdyke. From his study of firearms, he realized that something analogous to evolution can be traced in artifacts as well as in living organisms, with the same gradual developments and occasional degenerations. He assembled an ethnographical collection arranged by use rather than by provenance, a practical example of typology. He helped to advance excavation to a scientific technique with precise work, total excavation of sites, meticulous recording of detail, and full and rapid publication. His work on his own estate, Cranborne Chase, was published in five volumes entitled Excavations in Cranborne Chase" (1887-1903). He stressed stratigraphy and precise recording of all finds and is often called the "father of British archaeology". "
Pleistocene Series: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of the Quaternary System defined by its deposits. It is a worldwide division of rocks deposited during the Pleistocene Epoch (1,600,000-10,000 years ago). It overlies rocks from the Pliocene Epoch (5.3-1.6 million years ago) and is itself overlain by rocks of the Holocene Series; together these two latter divisions make up the Quaternary System. These deposits contain evidence of humans and their development throughout glacial and interglacial conditions. . By international agreement, the global stratotype section/point for the base of the Pleistocene Series is in the Vrica section in Calabria, Italy. The Pleistocene's boundary with the Pliocene occurs just above the position of the magnetic reversal that marks the Olduvai Normal Polarity Subzone, thus allowing the worldwide correlation of Pleistocene rocks with reference to the magneto-stratigraphic timescale.
Polada: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age lake dwelling site near the southern end of Lake Garda in Lombardy, Italy, the type site of the Polada culture, c 2200-1600 BC. The culture was characterized by a coarse undecorated ware forming deep carinated cups and various simple jars. The strap handles were often surmounted by knobs. Tlat and slightly flanged axes were made of bronze. Antler was much used, and objects and vessels of wood survive on waterlogged sites. A variety of settlement types occur, including hill sites and lake villages like Polada itself. The Polada people were accomplished metalworkers, producing a range of tools and weapons showing strong connections with Unetice and other Early Bronze Age groups north of the Alps. The Polada culture has features derived from Beaker assemblages, such as wristguards and v-perforated buttons, also.
polyphone: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A phonetic sign that may stand for two or more different sounds, like the English 'c' or 'a'; the opposite of homophone.
positivism: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A philosophical position holding that all natural and social phenomena can be understood by determining their origins and causes. Developed by Auguste Comte in the 18th century, it emphasizes the testability of statements and the separation of data from the theories that explain them. It is the primary theoretical basis of new archaeology.
protein sequencing: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The analysis of the sequence of the amino acids that make up a protein. Comparison of the sequences in different species is one way of working out their degrees of interrelationship. Protein sequencing is one of several molecular methods developed for estimating genetic change during evolution.
proton gradiometer: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: An instrument used in magnetic surveying for detecting the presence of magnetic anomalies; it takes continuous measurements of relative vertical change in intensity of field strength. There are two detector bottles filled with water or alcohol placed at either end of a staff two meters long and held vertically during operation. Protons which form the nuclei of hydrogen atoms in the liquid gyrate or precess; the frequency of precession is identical in the two bottles if no anomaly is present. Any disturbance in the magnetic intensity caused, for example, by a buried feature, results in a different frequency in the two bottles.
proton magnetometer: SYNONYM: proton precession magnetometer
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: An instrument used in magnetic surveying for detecting changes in magnetic field intensity; it takes intermittent measurements of absolute field strength. The detector consists of a bottle of alcohol or water around which is wound an electrical coil of 1,000 turns. The protons, which form the nuclei of hydrogen atoms in the liquid, spin and gyrate in their attempt to align themselves in the direction of the earth's magnetic field intensity. A current of one amp is passed through the coil for three seconds, which aligns the majority of the protons in the direction of the magnetic field thus produced. When this current is cut off, the protons attempt to realign in the direction of the earth's magnetic field; the speed of gyration, or frequency of precession, is amplified and measured in the instrument. This measurement reflects any alteration in the magnetic intensity caused by the presence of fired structures, soil disturbances (e.g. pits, ditches, etc.), or iron objects. It is a highly sensitive magnetometer, used in subsurface detection to record variations in the earth's magnetic field caused by buried iron, kilns, hearths, pits, or ditches.
pulsed induction meter: SYNONYM: pulse radar
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: An instrument used in electromagnetic surveying, mainly for the detection of metals, though on a limited scale it can be used to locate archaeological features. The instrument has a transmitter coil, which sends pulses of magnetic field to the ground: the continuous rising and falling of the field produces eddy currents in metal objects, and magnetic fields in susceptible soil. These are detected by a receiver coil. Only shallow features can be satisfactorily located, and it can be used to find metals, graves, and pottery.
radar interferometry: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A process used to search for archaeological remains by receiving and analyzing electromagnetic radiation.
random flaking: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The removal of flakes with no regard to the resulting aesthetic alignment of flake scars.
regular flaking: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The removal of closely aligned flakes of similar lengths and widths which result in an aesthetically pleasing flake scar design.
Reisner, George Andrew (1867-1942): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American Egyptologist who set new standards in Egyptian archaeology with his meticulous excavation methods, which were then comparable only with those of the British archaeologist Flinders Petrie. He carried out long-term excavations at Giza, Nag ed-Der, Kerma, and Deir el-Ballas. He directed a campaign in Nubia to survey threatened monuments, and conducted excavations at Samaria in Palestine and in Sudan (Kerma, Meroe, Gebel Barkal). In Egypt, he excavated many tombs (Pyramid of Menkaure, tomb of Hetepheres) and the Valley Temple of Mycerinus at Giza.
relative dating: SYNONYM: relative dates; relative dating techniques
CATEGORY: technique; chronology
DEFINITION: Dating methods where phases or objects can be put into a sequence relative to each other, but which are not tied to calendrically measured time. It is the sequencing of events or materials relative to another but without linkage to ages in years bp (before present) or calendar years. A relative date is a date which can be said to be earlier than, later than, or contemporary with an event but which (unlike an absolute date) cannot be measured in calendar years. When archaeologists say that event A occurred before or after event B, they have a relative date for A. Before the advent of chronometric dating techniques, all dating was relative except where links with historical events could be proved. Some of these techniques, mainly stratigraphy and seriation, are still useful where chronometric dates cannot be obtained. Theoretically, floating chronologies which cannot be tied to an absolute date (e.g. certain dendrochronological sequences) are relative chronologies even though the techniques are essentially chronometric.
resistivity surveying: SYNONYM: resistivity survey
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A geosurvey survey technique that measures the electrical resistance of the ground for the location of buried features and structures. Any electrical exploration method in which current is introduced in the ground by two contact electrodes and potential differences are measured between two or more other electrodes. It relies on the principle that different deposits offer different resistance to the passage of an electric current depending largely on the amount of water present. A damp pit or ditch fill will offer less resistance, stone wall foundations more, than the surrounding soil. It is one of the most commonly used and least expensive geophysical surveying methods. Readings are taken in a grid-pattern of points all over a suspected site. Variation of resistance through a site is caused mainly by differences in the amount of water contained in pore spaces of deposits and structures. The outline of features may be seen if the readings are plotted as a plan. Although the technique is generally known as 'resistivity surveying', most archaeological surveys use only the ground resistance (in ohms). It compares well with magnetic surveying, as the instruments are simple and cheap and also because modern features such as power cables, iron scrap, and standing buildings do not affect the readings.
Rongorongo: SYNONYM: rongorongo
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The ancient script of Easter Island, carved in boustrophedon fashion on wooden boards. The script has about 120 pictographic symbols and has not been deciphered or traced to any specific outside source. It survives on 29 pieces of wood. It may be indigenous to the island and could even be of post-European inspiration (it was not recorded until the mid-19th century AD). It does not appear to be a true phonetic writing system.
Sabatinovka: SYNONYM: Sabatinivka
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An area in the western Ukraine with several Tripolye sites, the most important being of the early 4th millennium BC and then a late Tripolye site yielding a knot-headed copper pin comparable to early Unetice metalwork of the early 2nd millennium BC. A later site forms the eponymous site of the Ukrainian aspect of the Nova-Sabatinovka-Bilogrudivka culture, a mid-2nd millennium BC culture found also in north Rumania and Podolia. Most settlement sites are unfortified lowland camps, whose large quantities of ash in domestic debris inspired the term 'zolniki' (ash-pits). Timber-framed houses on stone foundations are organized along streets at some sites.
scanning electron microscopy: SYNONYM: SEM
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique used to gain information on the microscopic and submicroscopic structure of a wide range of materials ceramics, metals, stone, teeth, hair etc. It involves a type of electron microscope (SEM) in which a beam of electrons systematically sweeps over the specimen, the electron beam passing through a series of magnetic lenses which demagnify the beam diameter. The backscattered electrons and secondary electrons emitted are detected by means of a scintillation or semiconductor counter. The angle at which the beam hits the surface of the specimen determines the number of backscattered and secondary electrons detected, and thus the pattern of contrast represents the topography and elements of the specimen. The signal from these emissions is processed and an image of the object is displayed on a screen. Its advantages over transmission electron microscopy include a greater depth of focus at high magnification and its ability to deal with specimens of much greater bulk, making it less destructive. The chemical composition of the material of the surface can also be deduced from the backscattered electrons. No elaborate specimen-preparation techniques are required for examination in the scanning electron microscope, and large and bulky specimens may be accommodated.
script: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Any writing system in its totality; a signary and the conventions which govern its use. Scripts may contain several different classes of sign -- punctuation, determinative, logographic, and phonetic.
Semite: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A name applied to the speakers of a set of related languages who inhabited portions of southwestern Asia since the time of the first cities. Semitic languages are characterized by the importance of the consonants, usually three forming the root of each word. The vowels are omitted altogether in a number of the scripts. The Semites are first recorded on the steppe margins of the Arabian desert, encroaching upon the Sumerians to form the kingdom of Akkad c 2400 BC. The Amorites appear c 2000 in the same area and in Syria-Palestine, where they settled to become the Canaanites. The Khabiru (Hebrews) appear in the same context. In the 12th century BC, the Amorites were followed by the Aramaeans, particularly in inland Syria. The Phoenicians from the 9th century BC carried their Semitic language over much of the Mediterranean. Arabic and Hebrew are the most important surviving Semitic languages. Most, probably all, alphabetic scripts derive from the Semitic alphabet, created sometime in the 2nd millennium BC. The Semitic script was invented by speakers of some Semitic language, possibly Phoenician, who lived in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent.
sequence dating: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method developed by Sir Flinders Petrie (for Egyptian predynastic cemeteries) for dating a group of similar objects according to their archaeological sequence. By studying the typology the changing forms of certain artifacts, they may be set into sequence. Petrie used it to arrange undated graves into a hypothetical (relative) chronological order according to the typology and association of the artifacts found in them (based on a stylistic seriation of Egyptian pre-dynastic tomb pottery). Artifacts found at other sites were then correlated with the sequence and given a sequence date. The technique can only be used to determine whether one type of artifact is earlier or later than another; it cannot show length of time between two. This type of seriation, when combined with cross-dating, is still useful in the absence of other dating methods.
seriation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A relative dating technique in which artifacts or features are organized into a sequence according to changes over time in their attributes or frequency of appearance. The technique shows how these items have changed over time and it is a way to establish chronology. Archaeological material, such as assemblages of pottery or the grave goods deposited with burials, are arranged into chronological order. The types that comprise the assemblages to be ordered in this way must be from the same archaeological tradition, and from a single region or locality. Once the variations in a particular object have been classified by typology, it can often be shown that they fall into a developmental series, sometimes in a single line, sometimes in branching lines more as in a family tree. The order produced is theoretically chronological, but will need archaeological assessment. Outside evidence, such as dating of two or more stages in the development, may be needed to determine which is the first and which the last member of the series. There are several types of seriation: frequency seriation, contextual seriation, evolutionary seriation, and similarity / stylistic seriation -- based on different changes. A seriation technique, called sequence dating, based on shared typological features, enabled Sir Flinders Petrie to establish the temporal order of a large number of Egyptian graves.
Shechem: SYNONYM: modern Balatah, Balata
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Palestinian site and biblical city with its most important period of occupation in the Middle Bronze Age c 17th century BC, when it was given a great insloping wall of Cyclopean masonry. To the same period belongs a stone plaque bearing one of the earliest known alphabetic inscriptions. The town was destroyed at the end of the Middle Bronze Age and not reoccupied until the 16th century BC. The site included a glacis of the Hyksos Period, when it probably controlled the territory from Megiddo to Gezer. It was clearly an important city in the Late Bronze Age and it figures prominently in the Amarna letters. It that time, fortifications and a temple with a massebah were erected. The town was destroyed in the 12th century BC and there was another break in occupation until the 10th century BC, when it became an Israelite city and the short-lived capital of the Kingdom of Israel. This was destroyed by the Assyrians in 720 BC, after which there was intermittent occupation until its final destruction in 101 BC. The site was replaced by Nablus (Neapolis) in 67 AD. There was also some occupation in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period.
sideways-looking airborne radar: SYNONYM: SLAR, side-looking airborne radar
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A remote sensing technique involving the recording in radar images of the return of pulses of electromagnetic radiation sent out from aircraft.
sideways-looking airborne radar: SYNONYM: SLAR, sideways-looking airborne radar
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique involving recording in radar images the return of pulses of electromagnetic radiation sent out from a flying aircraft.
signary: SYNONYM: signs
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The set of signs of all classes in a script, or the set of signs in one of these classes, as in phonetic signary. Signs themselves are representations which are non-figurative.
SLAR: SYNONYM: sideways-looking airborne radar
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A remote sensing technique involving the recording in radar images of the return of pulses of electromagnetic radiation sent out from aircraft.
Smithsonian number: CATEGORY: typology
DEFINITION: A unique catalog number given to sites, consisting of a number for the states's alphabetical position, a letter abbreviation of the county, and the site's sequential number within the county
soil conductivity meter: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A geophysical instrument used in electromagnetic surveying for the detection of metal, but also for the location of archaeological features such as shallow pits, which have a different conductivity from the surrounding soil. The instrument has a transmitter coil which is fed with a continuous sinusoidal current, and a receiver coil; they are mounted at right angles to each other at opposite ends of a horizontal bar about a meter long. The instrument is designed to pick up differences in conductivity between features and the surrounding soil, i.e. the reverse of a resistivity meter. Resistivity surveying is considered more sensitive and versatile.
stacked profile: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: A mapping method which presents the data as a series of layered profiles. Each traverse with the equipment is plotted as a curved profile, then each is placed in order, parallel to each other but aligned on an oblique plan so that a type of 3-D image of the sites's magnetic variatins is obtained. This method can be carried out with a proton precession magnetometer.
stadium: SYNONYM: Greek stadion
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In classical Greece, a long narrow track for foot-races and other athletic events. It most often is exactly one stadium" or 600 feet (180 meters) long a Greek measure equaling 1/8 of a Roman mile. It is an open-air construction with seating probably on raised embankments along the two sides and around the turning end. The Greek stadion is the ancestor of the Roman circus. Surviving examples are at Olympia Delphi Epidauros Athens and Isthmia. Sometimes they were connected with major sanctuaries where athletic games took place but were also part of the public buildings for a Greek city. The first Greek stadiums were in the shape of a horseshoe. They were sometimes cut into the side of a hill as at Thebes Epidaurus and Olympia site of the Olympic Games begun there in the 8th century BC. The Greeks also built hippodrome stadiums similar in layout but broad enough to accommodate four-horse chariot races."
standard deviation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The natural statistical distribution of a series of measurements around an arithmetic mean value; a measure of the scatter (variability, dispersion, spread) about the mean in a distribution. In archaeology, it is used in association with chronometric dating techniques like radiocarbon dating, where each measurement is a calculation of date for the sample, and the final date given, e.g. 2,400 ? 200, is a statistical description of a 'real' date. The standard deviation (?) as quoted means that there is a 66% chance of the real date lying within that range (for the above example, between 2,600-2,200). For greater probability, the date must be taken to two standard deviations (there is a 95% certainty that the date lies between 2,800-2,000) or three standard deviations (99% certainty). A single date with a relatively large error is generally of less use than a series of dates from the same context, which may show a clustering around a central date.
Straubing: SYNONYM: Straubing group
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Bronze Age regional variant of the Unetice culture in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is characterized by flat inhumation cemeteries with grave goods such as simple bronze daggers, awls, torcs, cones of coiled wire, and amber beads. It is dated to the early 2nd millennium BC.
superstructure: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The values, aesthetics, rules, rituals, philosophies, beliefs, religions, symbols, and other forms of knowledge assumed by cultural materialists to be causally conditioned by infrastructure.
thermoremnant magnetism: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A magnetic moment induced into an item by heat.
Thiessen polygons: SYNONYM: Thiessen polygon method
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Method of describing settlement patterns based on territorial divisions centered on a single site or feature (locational analysis); the polygons are created by drawing straight lines between pairs of neighboring sites, then at the mid-point along each of these lines, a second series of lines are drawn at right angles to the first. Linking the second series of lines creates the Thiessen polygons. Where the exact boundaries between ancient territories are undetermined, an attempt to reconstruct them can be made if the distribution of focal points (central place), one to each territory, is known. The assumption is that any point will be dependent on the nearest central place. Thiessen polygons are useful for defining theoretical territories related to each center -- an area of production, a source of an important material, or a market center. These theoretical territories can be tested by comparison with actual archaeological data such as artifact distributions.
Three-Age System: SYNONYM: three-age sequence, Three Age System
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The division of human prehistory into three successive stages -- Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age -- based on the main type of material used in tools of the period. The system was first formulated by Christian J. Thomsen in 1819 as a means of classifying the collections in the National Museum of Denmark. The scheme became progressively elaborated by dividing the Stone Age into Old and New, the Palaeolithic and Neolithic. A Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic was later added. The further subdivisions Early, Middle, and Late of the Palaeolithic (Lower, Middle, and Upper) were introduced, and a Copper Age was inserted between New Stone and Bronze. The Ages are only developmental stages and some areas skipped one or more of the stages. At first entirely hypothetical, these divisions were later confirmed by archaeological observations. It established the principle that by classifying artifacts, one could produce a chronological ordering.
transmission electron microscopy: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique used to examine the internal and surface structure and microstructure of materials such as metals, ceramics, and stone. A type of electron microscope is used in which the specimen transmits an electron beam focused on it, image contrasts are formed by the scattering of electrons out of the beam, and various magnetic lenses perform functions analogous to those of ordinary lenses in a light microscope. The sample must be very thin for examination of its internal structure; this is achieved either by grinding and depositing the material on to carbon film, or by preparing thin foils of metallic or non-metallic material by electropolishing or ion-thinning techniques. It is possible to study in detail such things as the wear marks on stone tools or the techniques of potterymaking through examination of the surface.
Tumulus culture: SYNONYM: Tumulus Bronze Age, Tumulus period
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Middle Bronze Age culture of the central Danube region in Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Bavaria, with burials beneath round barrows, dating c 1500-1200 BC. The heartland of the Tumulus culture was Bavaria, Württemberg, and the area previously occupied by the Unetice culture, but distribution extended into north Germany and west as far as Alsace. With the introduction of urnfield burial, the Tumulus culture and the Middle Bronze Age came to an end. It is defined mainly by the dominant burial rite of inhumation beneath a burial mound, as well as a number of characteristic bronze types, found both in the burials and in hoards. It continued earlier trends in ceramics and metalwork, though more elaborate in form and decoration.
Tutankhamun (reigning c1336-1327 BC): SYNONYM: Tutankhamen
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A minor Egyptian pharaoh of the late 18th Dynasty who came into great prominence when his tomb in the Valley of Kings at Thebes was found with minimal disturbance by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon in 1922. A son of Amenhotep III, he succeeded the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten. During an undistinguished reign of nine years he began the restoration of the worship of Amen (Amun) and returned the capital to Thebes. His more orthodox successors attempted to obliterate him from memory because of the taint of Aten worship which he apparently never entirely threw off. The tomb, though probably far poorer than those of the greater pharaohs, yielded a remarkable treasure and great detail of the ritual of Egyptian royal burials. The mummy, with a magnificent inlaid gold mask, lay inside three cases -- the innermost of pure gold weighing over a ton, the outer two of gilded wood. These were enclosed in a stone sarcophagus within successive shrines also of gilded wood, nearly filling the burial chamber. Three other rooms held chariots, furniture, statues, and other possessions of the king. It took three years to clear and preserve the contents of the wealthy tomb. The discovery stirred the public imagination and opened up a great interest in archaeology.
Ugarit: SYNONYM: modern Ras Shamra, Ra's Shamra
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important site of an ancient Syrian city, north of Latakia on the Syrian coast, occupied from an aceramic Early Neolithic (7th millennium BC) through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It was destroyed c 1200 BC; its fall coincided with the invasion of the Northern and Sea Peoples and earthquakes and famines. In its last three centuries it was in commercial contact with Egypt, the Hittites, and the Mycenaeans. Temples to Baal and Dagon (2nd millennium BC) and an elaborate palace with archives of cuneiform clay tablets have been excavated. These commercial and administrative documents and religious texts are very important records of the Canaanites. The texts are written either in the Babylonian cuneiform script or in the special alphabetic cuneiform script invented in Ugarit, dating to the 15th-14th centuries BC when it came first under strong Egyptian influence and then under Hittite dominance. Ugarit may be credited with the development of the first true alphabet: simplified cuneiform signs were used for an alphabet of 30 letters. Bronzes, ivories, stelae, high priest's library, and built tombs also survive.
Ugaritic: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An extinct Semitic language spoken and written from at least the middle of 2nd millennium BC at Ugarit and the surrounding area. It belonged to a western group of Semitic languages (i.e. Arabic, Hebrew) and was conveyed alphabetically -- the earliest alphabet for which we have a complete record. The cuneiform writing system used on the Syrian coast from the 15th-13th century BC. It was unique, though possibly patterned after the North Semitic alphabet. Ugaritic was written from left to right; its 30 symbols included 3 syllabic signs for vowels. Documents in Ugaritic are written on clay tablets with a wedge-shaped stylus and date from the 15th-14th century BC.
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.
Veterov culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Bronze Age culture of Moravia with a material culture of the Hungarian Early Bronze Age and the Unetice culture of Bohemia.
viewshed: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: In mapping, a physiographic area composed of land, water, biotic, and cultural elements which may be viewed and mapped from one or more viewpoints and which has inherent scenic qualities and/or aesthetic values as determined by those who view it
XTENT modeling: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Technique used to generate a settlement hierarchy which assigns territories to centers based on their scale, assuming that the size of each center is directly proportional to its area of influence. It is said that it overcomes the limitations of both central place theory and Thiessen polygons and that hypothetical political maps may be constructed from survey data.

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