Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for knife:

discoidal knife: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A discoidal flint tool often has a ground edge.
drawknife: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A knife handled at both ends used to shave wood.
flake knife: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A cutting implement for making flakes
Fuegian tradition: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Shell Knife culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A primitive people inhabiting the South American archipelago of Tierra del Fuego from c 2000 BC. The culture, a coastal tradition of the Alacaluf tribes, was often called the Shell Knife culture. It was based on the exploitation of marine resources and operative on the southern coast and offshore islands of southern Chile. The beginning of the tradition was marked by a change from land-oriented hunting and gathering; bone and stone tool technology persisted well into historic times. The primitive cultures of the Ona and Yámana (Yahgan) of Tierra del Fuego are so similar that anthropologists traditionally group them with the neighboring Chono and Alakaluf of Chile into this one Fuegian culture area". The Ona inhabit the interior forests and depend heavily on hunting guanaco (a small New World camel). The Yámana are canoe-using fishermen and shellfish gatherers. They are all nomadic and are sparsely scattered over the landscape and poor in material culture."
Juan knife: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A long flake with abrupt blunting retouch along one margin. Ethnographic specimens have handgrips of skin or resin and are documented from western, central, and eastern Queensland, Australia. They are very rare in archaeological contexts and are only known from the last few hundred years.
knife: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A backed blade; a cutting instrument composed of a blade and a handle into which it is fixed, either rigidly or with a joint
knife-trimming: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pottery technique using a knife to pare away the surface of a pot; the effect was sometimes used decoratively such as to produce facets around the vessel
penknife point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of late Upper Palaeolithic flint tool found in northwest Europe. Made on fairly broad blades, these tools are characterized by a straight unworked edge along one side, a curved distal end, and a lightly retouched edge parallel to the unworked side.
slug knife: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plano-convex knife
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of later Neolithic and early Bronze Age flint tool found in the British Isles, particularly associated with burials in northeastern England. Plano-convex knives have a leaf-shaped outline and slightly elongated form, worked on large thick flakes with retouch around and sometimes all over the convex dorsal surface but a plain untouched ventral surface.
taap knife: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of saw knife used in Western Australia. It was made of small stone chips mounted in a row on a wooden handle.
all-purpose tool: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A rare stone artifact that could be used for perforating, cutting, and scraping - normally larger than a thumb scraper or a drill but smaller than a large knife or scraper. It always has one end worked to a point for perforation with the opposite end worked in the form of an end scraper. One side is worked rather delicately for use as a knife. It is almost always oblong in shape.
backing: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A type of steep retouch probably used to dull the edge of a flake, making it suitable for hafting or handling with fingers; common on the edge opposite the cutting edge of a knife.
basal thinning: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The intentional removal of small longitudinal flakes from the base of a chipped stone projectile point or knife to facilitate hafting or produced to remove small, longitudinal flakes from the basal edge of a projectile point in order that the tool or point could be more easily hafted or held.
biface: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bifacial; handaxe; coup-de-poing
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A type of prehistoric stone tool flaked on both faces or sides, the main tool of Homo erectus. The technique was typical of the hand-ax tradition of the Lower Paleolithic period and the Acheulian cultures. Biface may be oval, triangular, or almond-shaped in form and characterized by axial symmetry, even if marks made by use are more plentiful on one face or on one edge. The cutting edge could be straight or jagged and the tool used as a pick, knife, scraper, or even weapon. Only in the most primitive tools was flaking done to one side only.
blade: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: blade tool; blade-~ (used attributively)
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A long, narrow, sharp-edged, thin flake of stone, used especially as a tool in prehistoric times. This flake is detached by striking from a prepared core, often with a hammer. Its length is usually at least twice the width. The blade may be a tool in itself, or may be the blank from which a two-edged knife, burin, or spokeshave is manufactured. This term, then, is used by archaeologists in several ways: (1) It can refer to a fragment of stone removed from a parent core. The blade is used to manufacture artifacts in what is known as the blade and core industry". (2) That portion of an artifact usually a projectile point or a knife beyond the base or tang. (3) In certain cultures small artifacts are called microblades. It was a great technological advance when it was discovered that a knapper could make more than one tool from a chunk of stone. The Châtelperronian and Aurignacian were the earliest of the known blade cultures -- associated with the arrival of modern humans. Industries in which many of the tools are made from blades became prominent at the start of the Upper Palaeolithic period. A typical blade has parallel sides and regular scars running down its back parallel with the sides. A 'backed blade' is a blade with one edge blunted by the removal of tiny flakes. Blades led to another invention -- the handle. A handle made it easier and much safer to manipulate a sharp two-edged blade."
Cheddar point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of later Upper Palaeolithic flint tool found in the British Isles, named after examples found in the Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. Made on a relatively narrow flint blade, both ends are worked to produce an elongated trapezoidal form with the long side of the blade left unworked and the shorter side blunted. Possibly used as knife blades.
cleaver: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A heavy, large core or flake tool of the Palaeolithic period, typically having a wide, straight cutting edge at one end, like a modern ax head. Technologically it is related to the handax, and is often found as a component of Acheulian (esp. Upper Acheulian) handax industries. The sharp transverse cutting edge was almost always notched by use but never sharpened. Along with bifacial tools, it was one of the main instruments of Homo erectus. It is found mainly in Africa, where much of the flake surface is left unretouched. The axlike knife was used since the Middle Pleistocene era to cut through animal bone and meat.
Cody complex: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A North American flint industry with a late Plato tool assemblage representing the last of the plains-based hunting groups. First identified in Cody, Wyoming, it dates to c 7500-5000 BC. There are Eden and Scotsbluff varieties of finely worked lanceolate blades and projectile points and a unique asymmetrical knife with a shoulder on one side (the Cody knife), usually found with bison remains.
Creswell point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of later Upper Palaeolithic flint tool found in the British Isles, named after examples found at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, England. Made on a relatively narrow flint blade, one end is worked to produce a slightly elongated trapezoidal form with the long side of the blade left unworked and the shorter side blunted. Possibly used as knife blades
dagger: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A short stabbing knife which, in ancient and medieval times, was not very different from a short sword. From about 1300 the European dagger was differentiated from the sword. In earliest antiquity, it was made of flint, copper, bronze, iron, or bone. It is difficult to distinguish it from an inoffensive knife blade. Prehistoric daggers were made in flint by the Beaker Folk in the Neolithic-Early Bronze Age, about 1900 BC. Bronze dagger, tanged for wooden hilt, were imported by Beaker Folk from western Europe between 1900-500 BC. The fully developed style of the Iron Age came to be in the 1st century BC. In copper it was ancestral to the rapier, sword, spear, and halberd.
Far'ah, Tell el-: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: el-Fara
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Two tells of this name, excavated in Palestine, inland from Gaza. The northern tell had a 4th millennium BC Chalcolithic settlement with circular, semi-subterranean dwellings and an Early Bronze Age occupation. It later became an Israelite town; for a few years in the 9th century BC, the northern tell was the capital of Israel (Tirzah), before Omri moved to Samaria. The southern tell may have been a Hyksos fortification. Its remains include a large building of the Late Bronze Age and remains of the Philistines from the Iron Age. The most impressive material came from five rich Philistine tombs containing characteristic Philistine decorated pottery, native Late Bronze Age undecorated wares, bronze bowls, daggers and spears; an iron dagger and an iron knife were also found, among the earliest finds of this metal in Palestine.
Federmesser: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A small backed blade, about the size and shape of penknife blades, which were the most distinctive artifacts of the Final Glacial peoples of the north European plain during the Allerød Oscillation (c 9850-8850 BC). Similar bladelets occur in the related Creswellian culture of Britain and the blades are very similar to the Azilian point. They are backed blades tapering to a point, and were probably used as arrowheads. They tend to have curved or angled backs unlike the earlier Gravette points.
haft: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The handle of a compound weapon or a tool -- such as an adze, awl, ax, or knife.
hardness: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In pottery, hardness is judged as soft 'can be scratched with a fingernail,' hard 'cannot be scratched with a fingernail,' or very hard 'cannot be scratched with a knife'; for archaeology, pottery hardness is most commonly measured by the Mohs' scale
Karasuk: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age culture that succeeded the Andronovo culture in southern Siberia in the late 2nd millennium BC. The three main, basically successive, yet often overlapping cultures were the Afanasyevskaya, Andronovo, and Karasuk. The Karasuk culture developed when a gradual change was made from settled communities to seasonal transhumance. Two settlements of large pit houses are known and many cemeteries of stone cists covered by a low mound and set in a square stone enclosure equipped with round-bottomed pots; many of these are in the Minusinsk Basin. The Karasuk people were farmers who concentrated on sheep- and cattle-breeding. They also practiced metallurgy on a large scale; the most characteristic artifact is a bronze knife or dagger, with a curved profile and a decorated handle, related to China's An-Yang. They produced a realistic animal art, which probably contributed to the development of the later Sytho-Siberian animal art style. Remains of bridles mark the beginning of horse riding on the Siberian steppe. The character of their material culture came from exchange with the centers of Far Eastern metallurgy. The Karasuk culture originated and spread its influences farther to western Siberia and Russian Turkistan than did the Andronovo. Trade relations extended to central Russia. Chronology of this period is based on comparisons with northern Chinese bronzes. The Karasuk period persisted down to c 700 BC.
Kimberley point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A pressure-flaked bifacial point with serrated margins and long shallow surface scar beds, found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia and neighboring areas of the Northern Territory and northwest Queensland. South of the Kimberleys the point was a trade item and was used as a surgical knife. The points were made at the time of European contact, when bottle glass and porcelain were adapted for the industry.
lancet: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A pointed two-edged surgical knife.
leilira: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Large pointed or rectangular blade which may be retouched to form a point or scraper-like tool. It could be hafted as a spearhead or fighting pick or used as a knife. It is associated with the Australian Small Tool Tradition in northern Australia.
mood: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A blank for a knife that has not been hammered out.
niello: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: nigellum; Tula work
CATEGORY: artifact; geology
DEFINITION: Powdered sulfides of copper, silver and lead, heated and used to make a bluish-black plastic substance applied to metalwork. The material was soft; it was cast into the cut-out pattern on the object and polished flat. It was used particular to decorate the inlaid daggers of shaft grave circles at Mycenae. The art of chasing out lines or forms, and inlaying a black composition was probably well known to the Greeks. The Byzantines compounded silver, lead, sulfur, and copper, and laid it on the silver in a powder, then put it through a furnace, where it melted and incorporated with the solid metal. Germanic and Anglo-Saxon metalworkers also used the technique. Objects decorated with niello, called nielli, are usually small in scale. During the Renaissance, at the height of its popularity, the technique was widely used for the embellishment of liturgical objects and for the decoration of cups, boxes, knife handles, and belt buckles.
Peschiera: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Bronze Age lake village at the southern end of Lake Garda in northern Italy, with close connections to the Terramara culture. Late Bronze Age metalwork of c 1250-1100 BC, pottery, artifacts, and timber piles have been recovered. In particular, a knife or dagger with a forked end to its flanged hilt is called after the site, as is sometimes the violin-bow fibula -- to which the site has lent its name.
preform: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A bifacially flaked piece of stone that exhibits both percussion and pressure flaking, and which usually is triangular in shape, indicating that it was being fashioned into a projectile point or knife.
quarry blank: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A rather small or medium-sized thin leaf-shaped piece of slint that could be mistaken for a small knife, scraper, or triangular notchless arrowhead
racloir: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: sidescraper
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A large scraper that has the retouched working edge along the long edge of the flake. The racloir is one of the most characteristic Mousterian implements and may have served as both knife and (side)scraper.
reaping hook: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Iron tool in the form of a long slightly curved knife, usually with a single blade on the inner face of the curve, used for harvesting cereals, grass, or reeds.
saex: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In Old English, a single-edged knife or cleaver; examples are commonly found in Saxon and Anglo-Saxon graves. Continental versions have a curving back while English types (late 6th century AD and later) are straight-backed with an angle near the point.
Sandia Cave: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sandia point
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Type site for a tanged and unfluted projectile point in New Mexico's Sandia Mountains. This cave has yielded artifacts of the so-called Sandia Man" (25 000 BC). In Pueblo mythology the Sandias were sacred marking the southern boundary of the Tiwa-speaking Indian territory. Sandia points were stratified below Folsom points but the radiocarbon dates of pre-20 000 BC are often discounted the true date probably falling in the range 12000-8000 BC overlapping with Clovis. Associated fauna of bison mammoth and mastodon suggested contemporaneity with the Llano Complex. Sandia Type I has a lanceolate blade without fluting and without concave base of Clovis/Folsom and a shoulder to one side of the base of the blade suggesting knife use. Sandia Type II has rounded base."
Sandia point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sandia projectile point
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: type site for a tanged and unfluted projectile point in New Mexico's Sandia Mountains. This cave has yielded artifacts of the so-called ""Sandia Man"" (25,000 BC). In Pueblo mythology the Sandias were sacred, marking the southern boundary of the Tiwa-speaking Indian territory. Sandia points were stratified below Folsom points but the radiocarbon dates of pre-20,000 BC are often discounted, the true date probably falling in the range 12000-8000 BC, overlapping with Clovis. Associated fauna of bison, mammoth, and mastodon suggested contemporaneity with the Llano complex. Sandia type I has a lanceolate blade without fluting and without concave base of Clovis/Folsom and a shoulder to one side of the base of the blade, suggesting knife use. Sandia Type II has rounded base.
Santa Isabel Iztapán: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Two mammoth kill-sites in southeast Chiapas, Mexico, with human occupation dating to 9250 years ago. At one site, a skeleton was found scrapers, knives, and blades of flint and obsidian, as well as a stemmed projectile point of flint. The second mammoth site yielded a chert knife, a leaf-shaped point of flint, and a lanceolate point with a flat base. Similar kill sites were found at San Bartolo Atepehuacan, on the outskirts of Mexico City and at Tepexpan. The site is important as an indicator of the rapidity with which newly arrived (Asian) hunters dispersed southward. Stone tools of both the Big Game Hunting Tradition and the Old Cordilleran Tradition were found in the same levels, which is puzzling and infers a combination of hunting techniques were used.
scramasax: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The single-edged knife often accompanying male Anglo-Saxon burials, a cross between an iron hacking sword and a dagger, with an angled back. It apparently served as general purpose knife or dagger. They commonly occur in Migration Period and Anglo-Saxon contexts until about the 10th century. They tended to become increasingly elaborate: many were finely inlaid with a variety of metals and some had very distinctive pommels.
sickle: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A knife for reaping corn, first used by Neolithic man, made of flint and shaped like a banana. These flint blades were mounted in a wooden or bone haft, as in the Natufian of Palestine. Later sickles were of bronze and some of terra-cotta were in Sumer. In the Bronze Age, a socketed sickle appeared. Since the introduction of iron, the balanced sickle has become the standard form -- a deeply curved blade bent back from the handle. Its modern form is a curved metal blade with a short handle fitted on a tang.
sickle element: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A component of a composite reaping or harvesting knife, often made from the medial and distal segments of a backed blade or from a long backed blade.
slicker: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A knife used to rub grease into a hide and to force dirt out of it. The knife is symmetrical with a handle at each end.
spatulate: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: spud
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flared celt, usually 8-10 inches long with a smooth, slender handle, used mainly like a chisel or knife
spokeshave: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A stone tool with a semicircular concavity used for smoothing spears or arrowshafts; a drawknife or small transverse plane with end handles for planing convex or concave surfaces
stem: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The extension of the base of a projectile point or knife which was designed for hafting or gripping. Stems can occur in various shapes. hafting method at base where flint extends in a central column
tool: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any existing physical object that is in some way fashioned or altered by humans and employed for a specific task or purpose. Tools made of stone included of axes, adzes, arrowheads, spearheads, daggers, knife blades, scrapers, borers, burins, picks, etc. The first tools date back to c 2,600,000 years ago, the beginning of the Paleolithic Age, and are different-sized pebble tools called choppers. The chopper was the only tool used by man for almost 2,000,000 years, until the appearance of the hand ax, a superior (and sharper) version of the chopper.
triangular: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A projectile, knife, preform or blade which has three sides or roughly has the shape of a triangle.
ulu: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A transverse-bladed Arctic knife, crescent-shaped and usually of slate. The blade of the knife is the lower element of an inverted T and the handle is the vertical upright element.

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