Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for gap:

gap: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: A source of bias in tree-ring dating representing the length of time between the formation of a dated ring and the date when the tree was cut. A gap and hiatus constitute a disjunction.
Hell Gap: CATEGORY: culture; site; artifact
DEFINITION: A Plano tradition complex of the Paleo-Indian period occupied from c 11,200-8000 BC (complex 10,000-9500 BP) and centered on a well-preserved, deeply stratified site in eastern Wyoming. Hell Gap is also the name of a projectile point type of the Plano tradition.
Hell Gap point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points of the Plano Tradition with a broad pointed top set on a straight-sided trapezoidal body. The base is narrow and straight. Used by later Palaeo-Indian cultures of the North America Plains in the period around 7500 BC. Experiments show that these points were probably spearheads and fully capable of penetrating the hide and rib cage of large beasts such as bison.
megapode: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mound builder, incubator bird
CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: A member of a family of stocky, chickenlike birds (order Galliformes, family Megapodiidae) found in Australia and the islands of the southwestern Pacific that build huge mounds of decaying vegetable matter in which to incubate their eggs. Most of the 12 species rely on fermenting plant matter to produce heat for incubation, but some use solar heat and others the heat produced by volcanic action.
Alamgirpur: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The easternmost site of the Harappan civilization, northeast of Delhi in the Ganges Valley. It was a small late Harappan settlement. After a gap of unknown duration, there were later occupations which showed Painted Grey Ware and iron use.
amino acid dating: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: amino-acid dating; aminostratigraphy; amino-acid racemization, amino acid racemization
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of absolute (chronometric) dating which is hoped to fill the gap between radiocarbon dates and potassium-argon dates. It is used for human and animal bone and other organic material. Specific changes in its amino acid structure (racemization or epimerization) which occur at a slow, relatively uniform rate, are measured after the organism's death. The basis for the technique is the fact that almost all amino acids change from optically active to optically passive compounds (racemize) over a period of time. Aspartic acid is the compound most often used because it has a half-life of 15,000-20,000 years and allows dates from 5,000-100,000 years to be calculated. However, racemization is very much affected by environmental factors such as temperature change. If there has been significant change in the temperature during the time in which the object is buried, the result is flawed. Other problems of contamination have occurred, so the technique is not fully established. It is fairly reliable for deep-sea sediments as the temperature is generally more stable.
barrow: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: burial mound; tumulus; burial cairn
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A round or elongated mound of earth or stones used in early times to cover one or more burials; a grave mound. The mound is often surrounded by a ditch, and the burials may be contained within a cist, mortuary enclosure, mortuary house, or chamber tomb. There are two types, the long (elongated) and the round barrow (also known as tumuli). The former were built in the Late Stone Age, the latter in the Bronze Age, though burial under a round mound was occasionally practiced during the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking periods.. The long barrow was a tribal or family burial vault built of stone slabs, some weighing many tons, and covered with earth or stones. The large, round barrows were often communal. They are often found in prehistoric sites in Britain -- earthen (or unchambered) long barrows from the Early and Middle Neolithic (Windmill Hill Culture). Other long barrows were constructed over megalithic tombs of gallery grave types. Most of the British round barrows incorporate circles of stakes. Bowl barrows --- simple round mounds, often surrounded by a ditch --- were the most common form, used throughout the Bronze Age and sporadically also in the Iron Age. The Wessex Culture of the southern English Early Bronze Age was characterized by special types of barrows: bell, disk, saucer, and pond barrows. Bell barrows have relatively small mounds and a berm or gap between the mound and the ditch; disk barrows are very small mounds in the center of a circular open space, surrounded by a ditch; saucer barrows are low disk-like mounds occupying the entire space up to the ditch; while the oddly named pond barrows are not mounds at all, but circular dish-shaped enclosures surrounded by an external bank. The related term 'cairn' is used to describe a mound constructed exclusively of stone. Barrow burials occur also in Roman and post-Roman times: one of the most famous of all barrows in Britain is that covering the Anglo-Saxon boat burial at Sutton Hoo.
Cyclopean masonry: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: cyclopean construction, cyclopean wall, cyclopean monuments, Pelasgian
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A style of masonry that calls for large, close-fitting, irregularly shaped stones, used typically in Mycenaean fortifications. The massive stone wall's gaps between the inner and outer faces of the huge stone boulders were filled with small stones and clay. It is named after the Greek mythical character Cyclops, thought by the Greeks to have built the walls of Tiryns, which are constructed in this fashion. The technique occurs widely elsewhere in the Mediterranean (Nuraghe, Naveta, Talayot, Torre), and was sometimes employed by the Inca and other Andean peoples.
dendrochronology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: tree-ring dating
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: An absolute chronometric dating technique for measuring time intervals and dating events and environmental changes by reading and dating the pattern (number and condition) of annual rings formed in the trunks of trees. The results are compared to an established tree-ring sequence for a particular region with consideration to annual fluctuations in rainfall which result in variations in the size of the rings laid down by trees on the outside of their trunks. These variations, given favorable conditions, form a consistent pattern; and sections or cores taken from beams in ruins have been matched to provide a long chronology over large areas. The method is based on the principle that trees add a growth ring for each year of their lives, and that variations in climatic conditions will affect the width of these rings on suitable trees. In a very dry year growth will be restricted, and the ring narrow, while a wet and humid year will produce luxuriant growth and a thick ring. By comparing a complete series of rings from a tree of known date (for example, one still alive) with a series from an earlier, dead tree overlapping in age, ring patterns from the central layers of the recent tree and the outer of the old may show a correlation which allows the dating, in calendar years, of the older tree. The central rings of this older tree may then be compared with the outer rings or a yet older tree, and so on until the dates reach back into prehistory. Problems that arise are when climatic variation and suitable trees (sensitive trees react to climatic changes, complacent trees do not) are not be present to produce any significant and recognizable pattern of variation in the rings. Another problem is that there may be gaps in the sequences of available timber, so that the chronology 'floats', or is not tied in to a calendrical date or living trees: it can only be used for relative dating. Also, the tree-ring key can only go back a certain distance into the past, since the availability of sufficient amounts of timber to construct a sequence obviously decreases. Only in a few areas of the world are there species of trees so long-lived that long chronologies can be built up. This method is especially important in the southwestern United States, Alaska, and Scandinavia, dating back to several thousand years BC in some areas. Dendrochronology is of immense importance for archaeology, especially for its contribution to the refining of radiocarbon dating. Since timber can be dated by radiocarbon, dates may be obtained from dendrochronologically dated trees. It has been shown that the radiocarbon dates diverge increasingly from calendrical dates provided by tree-rings the further back into prehistory they go, the radiocarbon dates being younger than the tree-ring dates. This has allowed the questioning of one of the underlying assumptions of radiocarbon dating, the constancy of the concentration of C14 in the atmosphere. Fluctuations in this concentration have now been shown back as far as dendrochronological sequences go (to c 7000 BC), and thus dating technique is serving the further research on another. In 1929, A.E. Douglass first showed how this method could be used to date archaeological material. The long-living Bristlecone Pine (Pinus aristata) of California has yielded a sequence extending back to c 9000 bp. In Ireland, oak preserved in bogs has produced a floating chronology from c 2850-5950 bp.
henge: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: henge monument
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A circular, prehistoric religious enclosure constructed of wood or stones and enclosed by ditches, banks, and walls -- and found only in the British Isles. Henge monuments are characteristic of the megalithic period in southern and eastern England in particular. To the west and north, henges often enclose a stone circle. There are 13 such examples, including Avebury and Stonehenge. The circular area is delimited by a ditch with the bank normally outside it. Class I henges have a single entrance marked by a gap in the earthworks, while those of Class II have two such entrances placed opposite each other. Avebury had four entrances. Many henges have extra features such as burials, pits, circles of upright stones (Avebury, Stonehenge) or of timber posts (Durrington Walls, Woodhenge). Henges are often associated with Late Neolithic pottery of grooved ware, Peterborough and Beaker types, dating from the centuries after 2500 BC. Occasional examples were still in use in the Bronze Age, e.g. Stonehenge. Henges are believed to have been focal points for 'ritual' activity, but there is much controversy over their design. They range in size from c 30 meters to more than 400 meters in diameter (Avebury, Durrington Walls).
hiatus: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: A source of bias in tree-ring dating where a period of time intervened between the cutting of the tree and the date of interest (target event). The gap and hiatus combine to make a disjunction.
Jones-Miller: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in northeast Colorado of the Hell Gap complex, used as a bison kill and butchering site. There were also stone tools and bone artifacts dating to c 8000 BC.
Madai Caves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of caves in eastern Sabah, northern Borneo, Malaysia, which form a large complex like those of Niah, Sarawak. The largest cave is Agop Atas, and it has produced an industry of early Australian type dated to 8000 years ago, with a pottery sequence dated from 500 BC to the present. It, along with Agop Sarapad, were inhabited from c 9000-5000 BC by hunters using pebble and flake tools. After a 4000-year gap, the caves were reused between c 2000-500 BC by people using stone flake tools and pottery. The caves were abandoned again and later reused in the early 1st millennium AD.
Midland: CATEGORY: culture; artifact
DEFINITION: Paleoindian complex of the North American Plains similar to the Folsom but the point is different. The type site is the Scharbauer site near Midland, Texas, though the culture is best represented at Hell Gap. A skeleton (Midland Man) of a young woman dating to 10,000 BP from Scharbauer was one of the earliest acceptable human remains in North America. The Midland point is an unfluted Folsom point.
Ochre-Colored Pottery: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
Olynthus: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Ancient city of northern Greece, captured and destroyed by Philip of Macedon in 348 BC. Some late Neolithic settlement is followed after a gap by Iron Age occupation by Thracian tribes, perhaps from about 1000 BC. The 5th-4th centuries BC saw the classical Greek town caught up in alliances, misalliances, intrigues and wars. The town, from c 430 BC, had a road system and Hippodamian-planned house blocks. Many of the houses show an internal courtyard, sometimes colonnaded, and a south-facing dining room. In some cases, a second story is reached by a wooden staircase from the courtyard. The roof is typically pitched and tiled. There are important examples of pebble mosaic floors, some with mythological scenes, and of a bathroom with pottery tub. Inscriptional evidence from the houses gives information of their sale, rental, and mortgage. The houses have also produced several coin hoards. It also provides a terminus ante quem for the development of black-glossed pottery.
open work: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A decorative technique in which gaps or interstices are left around a pattern, sometimes to be filled in with a different material.
open-work: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Decorative technique in which gaps or interstices are left around a pattern, sometimes to be filled in with a different material. It is also any work constructed so as to show openings through its substance; work that is perforated or pierced.
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.
Plano: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Widespread late Palaeoindian tradition in North America from 10,000-7000 BP. In the west, it is characterized by bison hunting and diverse projectile point styles; complexes include Agate Basin, Hell Gap, Cody, and Frederick. The characteristic unfluted leaf-shaped projectile point appears to have developed from Llano and Folsom types. These many styles or types have been identified by such local names as Plainview, Angostura, Milnesand, Agate Basin, and Scottsbluff and their primarily hunting culture may be included in the term Plano. The Plano complex or culture type was a direct descendant from the fluted-blade early American hunters. As the climate moderated, peoples of the Late Plano complex moved north into Saskatchewan and Alberta with the grazing game animals and, by 3000 BC, had reached the Arctic tundra zone in the Northwest Territories of Canada. It is the most recent of the three major Palaeoindian cultures.
snail: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: A gastropod, especially one having an enclosing shell, into which it may retract completely for protection. Land snail shells are frequently preserved in buried soils, the fills of ditches, and other deposits over limestone subsoils and sometimes fill a gap in environmental reconstruction. Other species are: shade-loving snails, open-country snails, and intermediate or catholic species that live in a variety of habitats -- including many of the more common species of snail. Using these categories of snail ecology, the relative frequencies of shell fragments from different species, extracted from deposits and soils, can be used to reconstruct ancient environments.
t'ao t'ieh: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: taotie, t'ao-t'ie
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Chinese term for a Neolithic design put on jade objects of the Liangzhu culture and then used on bronze in the Shang period. In the Shang (18th-12th century BC) and Chou (1111-c 900 BC) dynasties, it was a zoomorphic monster mask seen full face with a gaping mouth and no lower jaw, the eyes, ears, and horns placed symmetrically on either side of a vertical frontal line. T'ao t'ieh often consisted of two kui (dragons facing each other, also symmetrical, with body in profile, winding tail, and clawed feet). The t'ao t'ieh is the most important of a number of such patterns used to decorate the bronze vessels.
Wallacea: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Biogeographical zone of islands between Southeast Asia Sunda shelf and the Sahul shelf -- an area separating Australia from Southeast Asia for 70 million years. It marks the division between two major faunal groups: oriental animals (elephants, tigers, and apes) and the animals of Australia (kangaroos, wombats, and monotremes). Dates of first human settlement are uncertain; the first settlers of Australia prior to 30,000 years ago had to cross sea gaps of up to 70 km in this zone. The water formed a barrier to the spread of animals and humans into Australia and New Guinea. It is named after the British naturalist A.R. Wallace, who first recognized its significance.

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