Archaeology Wordsmith

           

Results for expanding:

(View exact match)

expanding

CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In lithics, referring to the width of a stem or point that is getting larger or wider

(View exact match)

Avebury, Lord (formerly Sir John Lubbock) (1834-1913)

CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British archaeologist whose book Prehistoric Times" (7 editions between 1865-1913) achieved bestseller status. An early convert to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution Lord Avebury popularized prehistory both as a term and a subject. He introduced the words "Palaeolithic" (old) and "Neolithic" (new) thereby expanding the three-age system (Thomsen and Worsaae) to a four-age system dividing the Stone Age into old and new periods. He also interpreted cultural change as evidence of invasion from the east and the development of society as the result of economic advance."

Chavín de Huántar

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Chavín
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The area of the great ruin of the earliest highly developed culture in pre-Columbian Peru, which flourished between about 900 and 200 BC and may have originated c 1200 BC. During this time Chavín art spread over the north and central parts of what is now Peru. It is not known whether this was the actual center of origin of the culture and art style. The central building at Chavín de Huántar is a massive temple complex constructed of dressed rectangular stone blocks, with interior galleries and bas-relief carvings on pillars and lintels. The principal motifs of the Chavín style are human, feline, and crocodilian or serpentine figures. Carved stone objects, fantastic pottery that demonstrates the most advanced skill, stone construction, and remarkably sophisticated goldwork have been found. Chavín pottery is known from the decorated types found in the temple and in graves on the northern coast, where it is called Cupisnique. Until the end of the period, the ware was monochrome -- dull red, brown, or gray -- and stonelike. Vessels were massive and heavy and the main forms are open bowls with vertical or slightly expanding sides and flat or gently rounded bases, flasks, and stirrup-spouted bottles. The surface may be modeled in relief or decorated by incision, stamping, brushing, rouletting, or dentate rocker-stamping. Some bowls have deeply incised designs on both the inside and outside faces. Its art style was never surpassed in the complexity of its iconography. The buildings, which show several periods of reconstruction, consist of various temple platforms containing a series of interlinked galleries and chambers on different levels. In the oldest part of the complex is a granite block, the Lanzón, on which is carved a human figure with feline fangs and with snakes in place of hair. Relief carvings in a similar style decorate the lintels, gateways, and cornices at the site, and human and jaguar heads of stone were on the outside wall of one of the platforms. On the coast, where stone is scarce, the highland architecture is replaced by work in adobe. Further south, the Paracas culture shows strong continuing Chavín influence.

Cyrus the Great (590-580 BC-529/530 BC)

CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The first great Achaemenid king, who founded the Achaemenid empire after overthrowing the Medes and expanding westward through the mountains into Anatolia and eastward across the Iranian plateau into Central Asia. His capital was at Pasargadae (Persia), where his tomb survives. He is remembered as a tolerant and ideal monarch who was called father of his people by the ancient Persians and in the Bible as the liberator of the Jews captive in Babylonia. His successors extended the kingdom into Egypt, western India, and Macedonia.

Gravettian

CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic industry named after the site La Gravette in the Dordogne of southwest France and characterized by well-developed blade tools of flint and female figurines of ivory. This advanced industry succeeded the Aurignacian and preceded the Solutrean, c 28,000-20,000BP. In France it is known as the Upper Périgordian (Périgordian IV) and the Gravettian appears to have developed in central Europe, expanding to the east and west. The small, pointed blades with straight blunted backs are called Gravette points. Most of the French sites are caves, but possibly related industries, known as Eastern Gravettian, are distributed through the loess lands of central Europe and Russia at the camp sites of mammoth-hunters; other sites are in Spain, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Italy. The Gravettians invented the bow and arrow, blunted-back knives of flint, and the tanged arrowheads. They are famous, too, for their cave paintings. Other artifacts include bone or ivory spears and, in eastern Europe, numerous other bone tools incised with an elaborate geometric pattern.

illite

CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A group of clay minerals having a three-layer, nonexpanding structure similar to that of well-crystallized micas

Medina

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Yathrib
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An oasis town in western Saudi Arabia, 447 km (278 miles) from Mecca, known as Yathrib before Muhammad's residence there. Medina is second only to Mecca as the holiest place of Muslim pilgrimage. It is venerated by all Muslims as the place to which the Prophet Muhammad fled from Mecca in 622. This event (the Hijrah / Hegira / higira) marks the beginning of the Islamic era and Muslim calendar. Muhammad built himself a house consisting of a walled compound containing a courtyard, living quarters, and a double portico. The Prophet and his followers worshipped here and the building, with its large courtyard and covered hall, became the prototype of congregational mosques, such as those at Samar-Ra. Soon afterward Muhammad drove out the Jews who had controlled the oasis. Thereafter known as Medina, the city prospered as the administrative capital of the steadily expanding Islamic state, a position it maintained until 661, when it was superseded in that role by Damascus. The House of the Prophet was rebuilt in 707-709 by the caliph al-Walid, who inserted a niche (the mihab) in the end wall of the portico to indicate the direction one must face while praying.

montmorillonite

CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A common clay mineral of the smectite group, having a small particle size and an expanding lattice

Northern Archaic Tradition

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Northern Archaic tool tradition
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Culture of the North American arctic and subarctic dating to c 6000-4000 bp. The characteristic artifact is the side-notched point. Assemblages also contain oval bifaces, endscrapers, and notched pebbles. The tradition was defined at Onion Portage in the Denbigh Flint Complex and postdates the American Paleo-Arctic Tradition. The peoples are thought to have come there from the south; they hunted terrestrial mammals such as caribou and developed their own styles of artifacts. They showed a preference for expanding northern forests, and, although they left traces outside the forest limits in a few places, they generally avoided the now-deglaciated coasts of Canada's far north.

Pagan

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arimaddanapura
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in northern Burma, close to the confluence of the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin, formed in 849 by the union of 19 villages and originally called Arimaddanapura. It is a Buddhist religious center and the rulers of the Pagan dynasty (1044-1287) erected c 5000 Buddhist monuments (temples and stupas) made of baked brick, which contributed to the deforestation of the area now known as the 'Dry Zone' of Burma. Until its conquest by the Mongols in 1287, Pagan was the capital of an expanding Burman kingdom which included the Mon country to the south and areas inhabited by Thai peoples in the East.

Western Zhou [Chou] period

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Royal Zhou
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of the Zhou/Chou Dynasty, 1027-771 BC, the earlier part of the Zhou dynasty, starting with the fall of the Shang dynasty. The first Zhou/Chou rulers parceled out their expanding territory among feudal lords. As the feudal states rose in power and independence, so did the central Zhou/Chou itself shrink, to be further weakened by the eastward shift of the capital from sites in the Wei River valley near modern-day Sian to Lo-yang in 771 BC. Thereafter, the Zhou/Chou empire was broken up among rival states.