Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for landform:

landform: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A natural feature of a land surface; a feature of the earth created by an erosional or depositional process or series of processes. Landforms together comprise a landscape.
alluvial fan: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: A deposited landform, usually by valleys or mountain fronts where tributary stream connect to larger valleys or lowlands. An alluvial fan is created by the accumulation of alluvium which spreads, or fans. They are important settlement sites because they are well-drained landscapes and resources are easily accessible.
bench: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: wave-cut platform
CATEGORY: geography; geology
DEFINITION: An eroded terrace with an alluvial cut surface, on bedrock in a valley. The term also refers to an eroded landform with a wave-cut surface in coastal areas and in wave-swept sea cliffs (also called wave-cut platform).
dune: CATEGORY: geology; geography
DEFINITION: A landform (hill, mound, or ridge) of sand or other loose material that is formed by wind action. Dunes exist due to the ability of wind to transport unconsolidated material and are mainly associated with desert regions where windblown sand occupies extensive areas. In the recent geological past, desert areas may have been even larger during dry periods in the Pleistocene glaciation. At that time great areas of loess (windblown silt) were deposited across North America, Europe, and Asia. Dunes also form in coastal areas. Migration of active dunes can bury archaeological deposits.
escarpment: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: scarp
CATEGORY: geology; geography
DEFINITION: A natural steep landmark or massive fault block. This landform consists of a steep slope which marks an abrupt change in altitude between two adjacent land surfaces. This long cliff or steep slope separates two comparatively level or more gently sloping surfaces and is a result of erosion or faulting. The term also refers to the side of the vallum sloping into the fossa, or ditch, nearest to a fort(ification).
floodplain: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: flood-plain
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A landform created by deposits in a river valley that floods. As the flood waters recede, the suspended sediment is deposited as alluvium and causes slow vertical accretion. Floodplains are often made up of secondary features such as individual flood basins, abandoned channels, secondary flood channels, tributary stream courses, and natural levees. They are prime agricultural land and archaeological deposits may be well-preserved in the subenvironments.
grid: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: grid unit
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A system of perpendicular lines and equally spaced points to form a rectangle which is used as a frame of locational reference on an archaeological sites. A grid is usually defined by its distance and direction in reference to a datum point. Excavations units are often planned and recorded by grid. Grids are often aligned with either the anticipated site layout or with a landform upon which the site sits. Many archaeological sites are surveyed by measuring from a grid enclosing the site. It is a rectilinear system of X, Y coordinates which is established over the area to be excavated so that spatial control can be maintained.
gully: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: An eroded landform which is a trench with steep sidewalls and a headwall cut into the land by an accelerated stream of water. The process of erosion can remove large quantities of sediment and destroy archaeological deposits. Some deep gullies have been used as settlement sites.
karst: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: An irregular limestone region with sinkholes, underground streams, and caverns. Karsts owe their existence to the removal of bedrock in solution and to the development of underground drainage without the development of surface stream valleys. Karst is characterized by the formation and growth of cavities resulting from chemical weathering and erosion in regions of carbonate and evaporite rocks. Karsts show much variation and are usually described in terms of a dominant landform. Most important are fluviokarst, doline karst, cone and tower karst, and pavement karst. Approximately 15 percent of the Earth's land surface is karst. The most extensive karst area of the United States occurs in the limestones of Mississippian age (about 325,000,000-345,000,000 years old) of the Interior Low Plateaus. Karst also occurs in the limestones of Ordovician age (about 430,000,000-500,000,000 years old) in Kentucky and Tennessee.
landscape: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: An aggregate of landforms in a region; the collection of landforms particular to a region at a particular time.
moraine: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Generally, a bank or layer of mud, gravel, and stones deposited by an advancing or retreating glacier. The term described a family of depositional landforms created by glacier ice. There are five common types: end or terminal moraine, recessional moraine, ground moraine, hummocky/ablation/medial moraine, and lateral moraine. The material, which ranges in size from blocks or boulders (usually faceted or striated) to sand and clay, is unstratified when dropped by the glacier and shows no sorting or bedding.
natural levee: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Elongate narrow ridges that form adjacent to channels when the largest particles of the suspended load are deposited as soon as the river leaves the confines of its channel. It is a depositional landform which is created as channels overflow their banks.
periglacial: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A term describing cold-climate processes and landforms, an environment with severe frost in non-glacial conditions and have much ground ice, mass movements, and strong winds. It applies to the region surrounding a glacial area and regions immediately beyond the ice-front during a glaciation. In a periglacial zone, part of the ground is perennially frozen. This so-called permafrost layer is covered by a layer which thaws and freezes seasonally, the active layer. Such seasonal changes give rise to several processes, some of which sort the constituents of the active layer and are collectively known as cryoturbation. A variety of landforms, including involutions, ice wedges, and pingos, are formed in the active layer and permafrost. Hillslopes become mantled with frost-shattered rubble that move downslope during cycles of freezing and thawing. Rivers are usually seasonal in the periglacial zone, and erosion by frost action is dominant. Wind erosion and deposition is often an important factor, and caused the formation of the huge deposits of loess and cover-sands in Europe and Asia. The periglacial zone is of interest because it would have been the environment in which man lived for long periods of time during the Devensian/Weichselian cold stage. During the coldest periods of the Quaternary (the last 1,600,000 years), the periglacial zone was enlarged to approximately twice its present size.
point bar: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A channel bar of mud to coarse conglomerate forming on the convex side of a channel bend due to reduced flow velocity. This landform is the most common type of lateral accretion; a depositional alluvial landform on and behind the convex bank of meandering streams. It is formed and modified as the stream floods and the meander bend moves. Over a period of years point bars expand laterally as the opposite bank is continually eroded backward. The bars progressively spread across the valley bottom, usually as a thin sheet of sand or gravel containing layers that dip into the channel bottom.
proglacial: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Landforms and deposits just beyond the margin of glacial ice; the deposition or environments at the edge of an ice sheet or glacier. This includes lakes, streams, loess, and periglacial features. Melt water released from the glacial mass carries loads of material eroded by the ice and this material is deposited in the proglacial area.
rock varnish: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Natural accretions of manganese and iron oxides, together with clay minerals and organic matter, which can provide valuable environmental evidence. When combined with radiocarbon methods, the study of rock varnishes can provide a minimum age for some landforms and even for some types of stone tool which accumulate varnish.
sea level: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mean sea level
CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: The level of the surface of the sea; position of the air-sea interface, to which all terrestrial elevations and submarine depths are referred. Changes in the volume of water held in the sea and relative movements of the land surface, resulting from various types of deformation of the earth's crust are important in archaeology. Sea-level fluctuations are shown by deposits and landforms on the coasts of localities. The sea level constantly changes at every locality with the changes in tides, atmospheric pressure, and wind conditions. Longer-term changes in sea level are influenced by the Earth's changing climates. The sea level appears to have been very close to its present position 35,000 years ago.
seismic reflection profiler: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: An acoustic underwater survey device that uses the principle of echo-sounding to locate submerged landforms. The concept is similar to echo sounding: seismic waves are reflected at interfaces where rock properties change and the round-trip travel time, together with velocity information, gives the distance to the interface. The relief on the interface can be determined by mapping the reflection at many locations. In water depths of 100 meters, this method can achieve penetration of more than 10 meters into the sea floor.
topographic map: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: Map that can be used to relate archaeological sites to basic features of the natural landscape. Topographic maps are cartographic representation of the Earth's surface at a level of detail or scale between that of a plan (small area) and a chorographic (large regional) map. Topographic maps show as accurately as possible the location and shape of both natural and man-made features They depict topographic (landform) data in combination with representations of archaeological sites.
Vyadhapura: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Sanskrit for 'City of Hunters', capital city of the ancient Hindu kingdom of Funan, which flourished from the 1st-6th century AD in an area that comprises modern Cambodia and Vietnam. It is 120 miles (190 km) from the mouth of the Mekong River, near a landform called Ba Hill in southern Cambodia.
yardang: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Elongate, eroded landform resembling the hull of an inverted boat. It is created by wind erosion of weakly consolidated rocks and often has smooth, rounded intermittent troughs. They are usually associated with deserts.

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