Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for point:

Adena point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A widespread Native American culture of the Early Woodland period in the Ohio Valley (US) and named after the Adena Mounds of Ross County. It is known for its ceremonial and complex burial practices involving the construction of mounds and by a high level of craftwork and pottery. It is dated from as early as c. 1250 BC and flourished between c. 700-200 BC. It is ancestral to the Hopewell culture in that region. It was also remarkable for long-distance trading and the beginnings of agriculture. The mounds (e.g. Grave Creek Mound) are usually conical and they became most common around 500 BC. There was also cremation. Artifacts include birdstones, blocked-end smoking pipes, boatstones, cord-marked pottery, engraved stone tablets, and hammerstones. Artifacts distinctive of Adena include a tubular pipe style, mica cutouts, copper bracelets and cutouts, incised tablets, stemmed projectile points, oval bifaces, concave and reel-shaped gorgets, and thick ceramic vessels decorated with incised geometric designs.
Adena-Rossville point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Contracting stemmed point with a narrower section at the base than the main part of the point.
arrowhead: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: projectile point, arrow-head
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small object of bone, metal, or stone that has been formed as the pointed end of an arrow for penetration and is often found at sites of prehistoric peoples. The earliest known are Solutrean points of the Upper Palaeolithic. Arrowheads are often the only evidence of archery since the arrow shaft and bow rarely survive. The term projectile point is generally preferable because it avoids an inference regarding the method of hafting and propulsion. Most often, arrowheads were placed in a slot in the shaft, tied, then fixed with resin.
attribute pointer: CATEGORY: database design
DEFINITION: In relational databases, a field in a many" file that makes a relation with the key attribute of a "one" file. "Site number" could be an attribute pointer in an artifact cataloguing file and refer to the key attribute "Site number" in another file "Sites" with a unique record for each site."
Avonlea point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Early bow and arrow projectile point 100 AD-500 AD.
Ayampitin point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked stone missile tips of willow-leaf outline found among archaic hunter-gatherer communities of the Peruvian highlands and coasts in 9000-7000 BC. Typical examples are 60-70mm long.
Bann flake: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bann point
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A term variously used by different authorities, but at its minimum it is simply a kind of leaf-shaped flake found widely amongst the later Mesolithic assemblages of Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, one component of the BANN CULTURE. More strictly, Peter Woodman defines them as large flakes having no significant tang, with light retouch, either as elongated or laminar forms less than 3.2cm across, or as leaf-shaped forms which are broader and have only very peripheral retouch at the butt.
barbed point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A bone or antler point with rows of barbs, usually on one side only.
bipoint: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A bone or stone artifact pointed at both ends.
birdpoint: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bird point
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A smaller arrowhead used by Native Americans to kill small game such as the rabbit, waterfowl, and birds
Bondi point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A small, asymmetric-backed point, named for Bondi, Sydney, Australia, which is a component of the Australian Small Tool Tradition. It is usually less than 5 cm long and is sometimes described as a backed blade. Some examples suggest that the points were set in wooden handles or shafts. It occurs on coastal and inland sites across Australia, usually south of the Tropic of Capricorn. The oldest examples come from southeast Australia, dating from about 3000 bc, and the most recent are 300-500 years old. The Bondi point was not being used by Aborigines when Europeans arrived.
Cahokia point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: This side notched , triangular arrow point has straight sides to slightly concave basal edges. A few may have slightly convex basal edges. In a addition to the side notches on the blade, usually just above the primary side notches, or it may be serrated. Points with two or three notches are the most common. The Cahokia point was named by Edward G. Scully {1951 :15 } for examples found at the Cahokia site in St. Clair and Madison counties in Illinois. An early Mississippian point dating in the A.D. 900 to A.D. 1300 range.
characteristic points: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Points on the contours of a vessel silhouette or vertical section marking angles (corner points) or curvature (inflection points), used in one system of classifying vessel shapes
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.
Chindadn point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A small teardrop-shaped bifacial point found in central Alaska and dating to c 12,000-10,000 bp; they are diagnostic of the Nenana complex.
Clovis point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Clovis spear point
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A distinctive, fluted, lanceolate (leaf-shaped) stone projectile point characteristic of the early Paleo-Indian period, c 10,000-9000 BC, and often found in association with mammoth bones. It is named for Clovis, New Mexico, where it was first found. The concave-based projectile point has a longitudinal groove on each face running from the base to a point not more than halfway along the tool. The base of a Clovis point is concave and the edge of the base usually blunted through grinding, probably to ensure that the thongs, attaching the point to the projectile, were not cut. It is assumed to have been a spear because of its size; the length of points varies from 2-4 in. (7-12 cm), and their widest width is 1-1 1/2 in (3-4 cm). Clovis points and the artifacts associated with them (grouped together as the Llano complex) are among the earliest tools known from the New World and have been found over most of North America, with a few outliers as far south as Mexico and Panama. It is the earliest projectile point of the Big Game Hunting tradition of North America. From these points came the later, more sophisticated points, such as the Folsom.
corner notch: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: corner-notched, corner-notched point
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A major projectile form which is described as a point that has had notches for hafting struck into the corners of the base. Also, a flaking technique applied to accommodate hafting which involved the flaking of notches into the basal corners of a preform base
crescent: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Great Basin Transverse point
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A crescent-shaped bifacially flaked stone tool generally restricted to the Paleo-Indian period and almost always found in association with extinct Pleistocene lakes. They were possibly used for hunting large shorebirds.
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
critical point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: critical moisture content
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The point in the drying of a clay article at which shrinkage water has been removed, shrinkage has largely ceased, and the piece is rigid and leather-hard
Dart Point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flaked projectile point designed for use as a tip for a throwing stick dart.
datum point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: datum
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The point on an archaeological site from which all measurements of level and contour are taken. It is the reference point used for vertical and horizontal measurement. It can be chosen at random, at a place from which all or most of the site can be seen, and should be tied in to the national standard, usually sea level, by reference to the nearest survey point. Depths of features, of objects found in features, or simply contours, are leveled in with reference to the datum point, and are usually recorded as being a certain height 'below local datum'. Should variations in contour or the extent of the site prove too great for a single datum point, another can be used as long as it is leveled in with reference to the first. A site grid and excavation units are laid out or measured with reference to this point.
Eastgate point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of projectile head developed c. AD 500 as an arrowhead during the late Archaic Stage in the Great Basin and western interior of North America.
Eden point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Eden points are known for their exceptionally well done parallel pressure flaking and diamond cross-section. The people that made them were hunting large animals like bison. Eden points were first discovered in Yuma County, Colorado blow-outs during the 1930's but none were found in situ until the spring of 1940 when Harold J. Cook spent several days digging in a site discovered by O. M. Finley. The Eden point was named by H. M. Wormington after the town of Eden, Wyoming. The Eden type site was named the Finley site in honor of O. M. Finley who discovered it.
Elko point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Large, roughly triangular-shaped chipped stone points with concave, straight, or slightly concave bases. Two main forms are known: those with corner notches on the base and those with ?ears' on the base. Dated to the period 1300 BC to AD 700 among Desert Archaic Stage communities of the Great Basin and western interior of North America.
fishtail point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A fluted and stemmed, fishlike stone tool of South America, dating to c 11,000-8000 bc. The complex has some similarities to the Clovis of North America and is representative of the Palaeoindian time in South America.
fluted lanceolate projectile point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A stemless point with rounded edges, a channel chipped into the spine, and no differently shaped projection at the base.
fluted point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: fluted projectile point
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A projectile point with a distinctive longitudinal groove left after removal of a channel flake; a long, medial channel notched to the base of a flake. The channeled flake is removed from one or both faces by striking the specially prepared base sharply with a piece of wood or bone. The sharp ridges of the flutes were ground smooth near the base of the point, to prevent them from cutting the bindings when the point was inserted into a notched foreshaft. These points have extreme symmetry, careful flaking, and the removal of a long, parallel and shallow flake from one or both sides. Fluted points are characteristic of the Palaeoindian peoples of North America such as the Clovis and Folsom projectile points.
foliated point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Elliptical shaped points, thin in section and pointed at both ends. Reminiscent of Solutrean ?laurel leaves' but form part of the Mousterian assemblages of central Europe
Folsom point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Folsom projectile point
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A distinctive Palaeoindian fluted projectile point with a single flute on each face and fine pressure flaking. Found in association in sites around Folsom, New Mexico, from c 9000-8000 BC (alternately 11,000-10,200 BP), they differ from Clovis points in the length of the flute, which extends over most of the point's side. Folsom points are smaller, with their widest dimension near the middle rather than towards the base; more concave base than Clovis, and edges of Folsom points were retouched.
Fulton turkey tail point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A leaf-shaped side-notched point -- with notches chipped into each side of the base to form a stem below the main part of the point, generally 3 3/4-6 inches long.
gem point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: gempoint
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A projectile point made out of agate, jasper, or another colorful stone
Gombe Point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kalina Point
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site overlooking the Congo River in Kinshasa, where the first stratigraphic succession of stone industries in central Africa was described. The are considered local variants of the Lupemban-Tshitolian sequence of west-central Africa. Although apparently stratified, the succession is now believed to have suffered a considerable degree of post-depositional mixing.
Hafun / Hafun Point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Xaafuun
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A peninsula on the eastern coast of Somalia with the best archaeological evidence yet available from the East African coast south of the Red Sea for early trade contact with the Mediterranean world at the beginning of the Christian era. No permanent settlement is attested, but burials contain imported pottery, some of it Hellenistic. The earliest written accounts of the East African coast occur in the Periplus Maris Erythraei" -- apparently written by a Greek merchant living in Egypt in the second half of the 1st century AD -- and in Ptolemy's Guide to Geography the East African section of which in its extant form probably represents a compilation of geographic knowledge available at Byzantium in about 400. The Periplus describes in some detail the shore of what was to become northern Somalia. Ships sailed from there to western India to bring back cotton cloth grain oil sugar and ghee while others moved down the Red Sea to the East African coast bringing cloaks tunics copper and tin. Aromatic gums spices tortoiseshell ivory and slaves were traded in return."
Hardaway point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile point with a triangular outline, a slightly hollow base, and a side notch towards the base on either side. Named after the construction company that used the site on which many examples were found by Joffre Coe in the 1950s, Hardaway points are thought to represent a stylistic variation within the larger DALTON TRADITION dating to the period c.8500-7000 BC.
harpoon head: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: harpoon point
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The arming tip of a harpoon. generally classifiable into 2 main forms - toggling and barbed - each of which may be composite or single-piece, and may or may not carry additional cutting-blades or side-blades. Always have line-guards or other means of line attachment.
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.
Hopewell point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Distinctive broad-bladed points of an agricultural subculture of the Woodland stage complex settling in Ohio and Illinois around 100 BC and lasting to 500 AD
Humbolt Series point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone points of lanceolate outline manufactured by Archaic Stage communities on the Great Plains and western interior of North America in the period c.3000 BC to AD 700. There are numerous variations in style and in size, but most have a hollow base and none have side notches.
Jermanovice point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Laurel-leaf points, flaked completely on one side but bifacially only on the lower part of the blade and on the bulb of percussion. Characteristic of the Upper Palaeolithic Jermanovice Culture in Poland.
Kauri Point: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Maori Pa near Tauranga, New Zealand, which has revealed several phases of Classic Maori ditch and bank fortification from c 1500-1750 AD. The interior of the pa contained large numbers of sweet potato storage pits. The swamp preserved many artifacts, including wooden combs.
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.
La Mouillah point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A point like a piquant-triedre except that it is backed and the tip then twisted off so the microburin scar forms an extended point
laurel-leaf point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: laurel-leaf blade
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A distinctive long, thin leaf-shaped Solutrean flake tool made with delicate workmanship. The largest was found from Volgu, France. It was made during the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe.
Le Croy point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: LeCroy
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: An Early Archaic bifurcate, chipped-stone projectile point of the US Southeast, small- or medium-sized with short triangular blades. They are dated c 6500-6000 BC and found in Ohio and Tennessee river drainages and north to the Great Lakes.
Lerma point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A projectile point made before 7000 BC in Tamaulipas and Puebla, Mexico. It is laurel leaf-shaped and similar to those found in the Great Basin of the U.S.
Levallois flake: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Levallois point
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flake produced from a carefully prepared core.
Levanna projectile point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Levanna projectile points are usually associated with Late Woodland and Contact Period occupations in southern New England (ca. 700-300 Years B.P.). Common material types associated with this point include quartz, quartzite, hornfels, and basalt. Non-local cherts were also used in the manufacture of this point type. The Levanna point type is characterized by the equilateral triangular form and concave base.
Maros point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Small hollow-based stone projectile points, often with serrated edge-retouch, characteristic of a mature phase of the Toalian industry of southwestern Sulawesi, India, c 6000 BC into the 1st millennium BC. They were part of a mid-Holocene stone flake and blade industry.
McKean point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points characteristic of the McKean Complex of the middle Archaic Stage in the Great Plains of North America during the period c.2900-1000 BC. Lanceolate in outline with curved sides and a hollow base these points were probably spearheads used in bison hunting.
meadowood point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A triangular side-notched point -- with notches chipped into each side of the base to form a stem below the main part of the point, generally 2 1/2 inches long.
midpoint: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In lithics, an imaginary point a the intersection of the Midline and the transverse line.
Mladec point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A point made from bone, antler, or ivory with an elongated oval shape. It has been found at Aurignacian sites in central Europe.
Morrow Mountain point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Middle Archaic bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points found in eastern parts of North America and dating to the period c.6000-4000 BC. Characteristically, the points are triangular in outline with slightly flared sides towards the base, and a small rounded tang on the base.
Otter Creek point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Archaic Stage large bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points with a side notch found in northeastern parts of North America and dating to the period c.4500-2600 BC.
Ounan Point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Pointed bladelet with basal stem used in North African Late Pleistocene and Holocene, such as in Ounanian and Early Neolithic industries of the Eastern Sahara.
Paijan point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone points of triangular outline with a small stem or tang at the base. Characteristic of the Archaic Stage paiján Tradition of South America in the period 9000-7000 BC.
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.
Pinto point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile point characteristic of the Pinto Basin Phase of western North America 5000-1900 BC. Triangular in outline, Pinto points are shouldered towards the bottom of the long side to produce a straight stem; they have a hollow base.
Pirri point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pirri culture, pirri point
CATEGORY: lithics; culture
DEFINITION: An Australian stone tool type, a symmetrical leaf-shaped point, up to 7 cm long, unifacially flaked all over its dorsal surface. The striking platform and bulb of percussion are sometimes removed to produce a rounded, thinned butt. Pirri points have been found distributed widely in inland Australia from South Australia to the Northern Territory and northwestern Australia. A component of the Australian Small Tool Tradition, the Pirri point dates from about 3000 BC. The aboriginal term pirri" means 'wood-engraving tool'."
Plainview point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points found in central areas of North America in the period around 8000 BC. Similar in form to CLOVIS points although lacking the distinctive flutes of Clovis and perhaps pre-dating them in some areas.
Plano point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Name of projectile points developed out of the Clovis and Folsom points of the Big Game Hunting tradition, after 8000 BC in North America. Unfluted, large lanceolate stone forms were made by pressure flaking techniques. The two main types of Plano points are Plainview of 7800-5100 BC and Parallel which are longer, more slender, and more finely made.
point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A category of stone artifacts consisting of pointed tools flaked on one or both sides. A weapon or tool having such a part and used for stabbing or piercing, e.g. arrowhead, spearhead.
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.
point counting: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Categorizing individual grains of sediment exposed by thin sectioning by size and sometimes by shape and then counting.
point of percussion: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The point at which a core is struck with a hammerstone in order to remove a flake. The point of percussion is a visible excrescence on the core, a small scar on the struck flake. The bulb of percussion surrounds it.
point provenience: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The location (provenience) of a specific object at an exact point on a site.
point-pattern analysis: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A basic form of spatial analysis that allows archaeologists to identify concentrations of material, trends in artifact deposition, etc. by examining random patterns.
point-plot system: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A basic method of recording context where every artifact or ecofact is individually recorded (point-plotted) according to its horizontal and vertical location.
pointillé: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of decoration by marking with dots
poison point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An arrowhead used not only to pierce the hide of an animal, but also to poison it; most were notchless and triangular so that the shaft of the arrow could detach easily and remain in the wound after being soaked in snake venom or decayed meat, etc.
Poverty Point: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in northern Louisiana with a spectacular group of late Archaic sites, c 1300-400 BC in the Woodland stage. The site consisted of six concentric octagons, each formed of earthen ridges that seem to have been used as dwelling areas. There are also two mounds, and from the larger one the vernal and autumnal equinoxes can be observed directly over the center of the village. Artifacts include numerous clay balls used for cooking in lieu of heated stones, microliths, stone smoking pipes and vessels, clay figurines, and fiber-tempered pottery sherds. The clay balls are found in thousands, both here and at other sites in the Lower Mississippi valley. A high level of social organization is indicated by the presence of earthworks like that at Poverty Point, but there is very little evidence of the practice of agriculture.
Poverty Point projectile point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Projectile points, especially types with narrow stem-body junctures, from Poverty Point, a site is located just west of the Mississippi River in northeastern Louisiana. The site is significant because its earthworks are the oldest large aboriginal constructions known in mainland North America. They were built between 1730 and 1350 B.C. by Terminal Archaic hunter-gatherers
pre-projectile point complex: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term applied to a complex consisting of the earliest archaeological evidence of humans on the North American continent. It is characterized by the lack of stone projectile points, which can be dated.
projectile point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The general term for the stone, bone, or wooden tip of a projectile -- the point that is attached to a weapon such as an arrow, dart, lance, or spear. Among such points are arrowheads, which are usually of small size, and dart and spearpoints, which may be quite large. This tool is valuable in reconstruction of culture history.
Rosegate series point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points characteristic of Archaic communities living in the Great Basin of North America in the period AD 700-1300. Distinguished by having a triangular outline, small corner notches and a basal tang. Once known as Rose Spring and East Gate types, they are now recognized as part of a single series.
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.
serrated point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An arrowhead with a serrated point, the edges with uniform small indentations in a sawtoothlike pattern
shouldered point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Type of stone point made on a blade, with a notch on one side of the base and flaked partly or wholly on both sides. Shouldered points are characteristic of some Upper Palaeolithic cultures of Europe, such as the Solutrean, Magdalenian, and Eastern Gravettian.
side-notched point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Type of stone point which is chipped on both faces and having notches on both sides near the base. They are characteristic of the Northern Archaic tradition in North America.
site datum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: datum point
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The master control point on an archaeological site, into which all measurements are tied.
spearpoint: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The tip of a projectile, used for throwing, thrusting, or stabbing.
St. Albans point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points with corner notches, manufactured by early Archaic Stage communities in eastern parts of North America around 7500 BC.
stemmed point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: notchless point, shouldered point
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A projectile or blade that has a stem which was designed for hafting or holding. A projectile or blade that has a stem which was designed for hafting or holding.
Swiderian point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Type of stone point made on a blade and having a stemmed base flaked on both sides. It is characteristic of the Swiderian industry of Poland (Upper Palaeolithic, c 11,000-9000 BP).
tanged point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A projectile point of flint or stone, typically of triangular or leaf-shaped form, with a small projection at the base for the secure attachment to a wooden shaft.
tanged point cultures: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term once used for the series of cultures of the Postglacial period whose tool kits include small tanged or shouldered points, e.g. the Ahrensburgian and Hamburgian.
unit datum point: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: The control point from which all measurements in a specific excavation unit are made.
warpoint: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small, late prehistoric general-purpose projectile points with triangular configuration, no notches or stem
willow-leaf point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Late Solutrean flake tool -- slim, with rounded ends and retouching on one side only -- of extremely fine workmanship.
acculturation: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (antonym: diffusion)
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The adoption of a trait or traits by one society from another and the results of such changes. This is a consequence of contact between cultures, usually with one being dominant, and is a process by which a group takes on the lifeways, institutions, and technology of another group. There are two major types of acculturation: free borrowing where one society selects elements of another culture that they integrate in their own way, and directed change, where one group establishes dominance through military conquest or political control. Though directed change involves selection, it results from the interference in one cultural group by members of another. In anthropology, the change is considered from the point of view of the recipient society.
Acheulian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Acheulean, Acheulian industry
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: A European culture of the Lower Palaeolithic period named for Saint-Acheul, a town in northern France, the site of numerous stone artifacts from the period. The conventional borderline between Abbevillian and Acheulian is marked by a technological innovation in the working of stone implements, the use of a flaking tool of soft material (wood, bone, antler) in place of a hammerstone. This culture is noted for its hefty multipurpose, pointed (or almond-shaped) hand axes, flat-edged cleaving tools, and other bifacial stone tools with multiple cutting edges. The Acheulian flourished in Africa, western Europe, and southern Asia from over a million years ago until less than 100,000 and is commonly associated with Homo erectus. This progressive tool industry was the first to use regular bifacial flaking. The term Epoque de St Acheul was introduced by Gabriel de Mortillet in 1872 and is still used occasionally, but after 1925 the idea of epochs began to be supplanted by that of cultures and traditions and it is in this sense that the term Acheulian is more often used today. The earliest assemblages are often rather similar to the Oldowan at such sites as Olduvai Gorge. Subsequent hand-ax assemblages are found over most of Africa, southern Asia and western and southern Europe. The earliest appearance of hand axes in Europe is still refereed to by some workers as Abbevillian, denoting a stage when hand axes were still made with crude, irregular devices. The type site, near Amiens in the Somme Valley contained large hand ax assemblages from around the time of the penultimate interglacial and the succeeding glacial period (Riss), perhaps some 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. Acheulian hand axes are still found around the time of the last interglacial period, and hand axes are common in one part of the succeeding Mousterian period (the Mousterian of Acheulian tradition) down to as recently as 40,000 years ago. Acheulian is also used to describe the period when this culture existed. In African terminology, the entire series of hand ax industries is called Acheulian, and the earlier phases of the African Acheulian equate with the Abbevillian of Europe.
acute: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In lithics, severe short angles coming to a sharp point.
aestel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An object to point at words whilst reading
Agate Basin: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A Palaeoindian site of Wyoming with evidence of the killing and butchering of animals. Artifacts include a distinctive point, scrapers, and eyed bone needles. The complex dates to 10,500-10,000 BP.
Agrelo culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The Agrelo culture was centered in northwestern Argentina and dates from AD 1 to 1000. The type site is just south of Mendoza and it features distinctive deep, wide-mouthed pottery with parallel stepped incised lines, punctations, and fingernail impressions, typical of southern Andean tradition. Pottery spindle whorls, crude figurines, labrets, clubheads, triangular projectile points, and beads of stone have been found. Pit inhumations were marked by stone circles. The Agrelo represents the agriculture-pottery threshold in this semi-arid area. Nearby coastal pottery styles (Cienega, El Molle) may be precursors to Agrelo.
Ahrensburg: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ahrensburgian
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village near Hamburg, Germany, where there are two late Palaeolithic sites, Meiendorf and Stellmoor. Stellmoor dates to 8500 BC and is attributed to the Ahrensburgian culture. Tanged points, which were possibly arrowheads, and pine arrow shafts with bowstring notches give evidence for the use of the bow and arrow. The Ahrensburgians mainly hunted reindeer.
Ahrensburgian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Epipalaeolithic culture of the Late Glacial Period in northern Germany and the Low Countries, c. 8850-8300 BC. The small tanged points, pine arrow shafts, abundant reindeer bones, barbed harpoons, and antler adzes of Stellmoor characterize the culture.
Ali Kosh: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early farming site near Deh Luran in southwestern Iran, occupied c 7500-5600 BC. It was the first excavated farming site where significant quantities of plant remains were collected using the flotation technique, a landmark in the study of farming origins. The earliest phase, named Bus Mordeh and dated c 7500-6750 BC is characterized by simple mud-brick buildings and a combination of wild and domesticated foods, some herding, and the catching of fish. The succeeding phase, Ali Kosh and dated c 6770-6000 BC had similar plants and animals, hunting and fishing, but a decline in wild plant foods which points to more successful cereal cultivation. The buildings were much more substantial in this period. The final phase, Muhammed Jaffar and dated c 6000-5600, saw the introduction of pottery and ground stone. The evidence shows some strain of over-exploitation and by the mid-6th millennium BC, the area was abandoned. The site illustrates the transition from food gathering to food production and the improvement of house-building quality.
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.
Ambrona: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Lower Palaeolithic site in Soria, central Spain, first discovered before World War II. Ambrona probably dates 300,000-400,000 years ago, from the end of the Mindel glacial period. Its occupants hunted elephants, deer, and bovines though the horse was the most common animal in the area. There are stone hand axes, scrapers, and cleavers of the Acheulian type and similar to some African sites were made from chalcedony, quartzite, quartz, and limestone. Points were fashioned from young elephant tusks. Pieces of charcoal show that fire was used.
amphora: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plural amphorae, amphoras
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A large Greek or Roman earthenware storage jar, with a narrow neck and mouth and two handles (two-eared"; each called an anem) at the top. The body of the jar is usually oval and long with a pointed bottom. It was used for holding or transporting liquids especially wine or oil and other substances such as resin. Its shape made it easy to handle and ideal for tying onto a mule's or donkey's back. They were often placed side-by-side in upright positions in a sand-floored cellar. Sinking it into the sand or ground kept the contents cool. Amphorae were also made of glass onyx gold stone and brass and some had conventional jar bottoms with a flat surface. The container would be sealed when full and the handle usually carried an amphora stamp impressed before firing giving details such as the source the potter's name the date and the capacity. Amphorae were probably not normally re-used."
Amratian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Naqadah I
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Egyptian predynastic culture, centered in Upper Egypt and named for the site El Amrah (or al-'Amirah; c 4500-4000 BC) near Abydos. Numerous sites, dating to c 3600 BC, have been excavated. They reveal an animal husbandry and agricultural lifeway similar to the preceding Badarian culture. There are large cemeteries, like that at Naqada, which imply that the settlements were permanent and large. Many of the dead were buried crouched with rich grave goods. Flint was quarried for the variety of finely worked daggers, points, and tools. Copper came into use for beads, harpoons, and pins. There was trading with Ethiopia, the Red Sea, and Syria based on the finds. Several pottery wares, in a range of shapes, were made: black-topped red ware from the Badarian period onward and white cross-lined (red ware painted in white) added.
Amvrosievka: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site in southern Ukraine with and large number of bison bones and artifacts of microblades and laterally-grooved bone points. The site is dated to 15,250 bp.
Ancón Yacht: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Ancón Valley on Peru's coast, just north of Lima. There is a high shell mound with deep stratified layers containing baskets, chipped leaf points, cultivated plants, shell fishhooks, string, twined cloth and baskets, and wooden tools. The site dates between 2500-2000 BC.
Arctic Small Tool tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The first coastal dwellers of the true Arctic regions who appeared before 2200 BC and who had a hunting tradition and a distinctive set of stone tools, weapon tips, and adzes of small size (hence the name). Their sites stretched from the Bering Sea across the north Canadian coast as far east as northernmost Greenland, though there is no evidence of sleds or boats. Within a century or two of 2000 BC, they also expanded southward in Alaska to the Alaska Peninsula and south along the northeastern American coast to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Denbigh Flint Complex (or Arctic Denbigh culture, named for the type site Cape Denbigh, Alaska) is the characteristic tool assemblage. It included small chipped stone artifacts derived from Neolithic eastern Siberia -- such as blades, microblades, burins, scrapers, large bifacial projectile points. There was no pottery and the economics were balanced between products of the land (caribou, lake and river fish, musk ox) and sea mammals. Approximate dates range from 4000-1000 BC and this tradition is thought to be associated with ancestral Eskimo. In Canada and Greenland, the Small Tool people gradually developed into the Dorset culture. In Alaska, the Small Tool people disappeared and were replaced by 400 BC by people of the Norton culture who used Siberian-type pottery.
Arenal: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A Preceramic site and culture dating between 6500-6000 BC on the central coast of Peru, south of Lima. The culture was characterized by large diamond-shaped chipped points which indicated a hunting lifeway.
Arkin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Stone Age site near Wadi Halfa in the Nubian Nile Valley. There are factory sites for roughouts of foliate points of the Later Mousterian tradition which are probably contemporary with factories at nearby Khor Musa. The artifacts show affinities with Saharan Aterian artifacts.
arrow: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A weapon consisting of a stick with a sharp pointed head, designed to be shot from a bow
artifact: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: artefact
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any object (article, building, container, device, dwelling, ornament, pottery, tool, weapon, work of art) made, affected, used, or modified in some way by human beings. It may range from a coarse stone or a needle to a pyramid or a highly technical accomplishment -- and these objects are used to characterize or identify a people, culture, or stage of development. The most common artifacts are pieces of broken pottery, stone chips, projectile points, and tools. The environment may play a part in the nature of an artifact if it has been seriously altered by man through fire, house and road construction, agricultural practices, etc. Therefore, the line is sometimes hard to draw between a natural object and one used by man, but there is no doubt when it can be shown that man shaped it in any way, even if only accidentally in the course of use. Artifacts are individually assignable to ceramic, lithic, metal, or organic, or other lesser-used categories. A sociotechnic artifact is a tool that is used primarily in the social realm. A technomic artifact is a tool that is used primarily to deal with the physical environment.
astrolabe: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An instrument, usually consisting of a disc and pointer, formerly used to make astronomical measurements, especially of the altitudes of celestial bodies and as an aid in navigation.
astronomy: CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: Most ancient civilizations studied the skies for astronomical knowledge. Ancient astronomy has been studied by archaeologists in prehistoric Europe through monuments and in Central America through inscriptions and documents. Studies of prehistoric astronomy in Europe have concentrated on the megalithic monuments and stone circles, which have been proven to incorporate alignments of the sun, moon, and brighter stars -- especially significant points in their cycles. Solar alignments occur at New Grange and Stonehenge, lunar orientations at the Recumbent Stone Circles of Aberdeenshire and the Carnac stones in Brittany. Many theories are discussed as to the accuracy of measurements and the degree of astronomical understanding achieved by these early societies. The ability to predict astronomical events would have enhanced political power, which is something suggested in Mesoamerica. The ability to predict events by the governing elite class increased their credibility as able rulers. The Mesoamerican people put great emphasis on the calendar and astronomy and were able to make extremely accurate measurements of the solar year, the appearance of eclipses, and the phases of the Moon. Buildings seen as observatories occur at Chichen Itza and at Palenque, and the Dresden codex is a detailed collection of calculations tracing the eclipses of the Moon and Sun and the cycles of Venus and possibly Mars and Jupiter. The Maya were even aware of the impreciseness of the 365-day year in their Calendar Round and added a correction factor to account for the quarter-day per year discrepancy. The cycle of the Moon, in comparison, was calculated with amazing accuracy (29.5302 days compared to the actual figure of 29.5306). The cycle of Venus (calculated at 583.92) was also pinpointed as accurately as measurements taken by modern astronomical methods. The ancient astronomers' awareness of long-term astronomical phenomena was astonishing.
Asturian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A macrolithic industry of the Mesolithic in northern Spain, discovered from shell mounds at cave mouths. It followed the Azilian and is characterized by a long pointed unifacial quartzite pick. It dates to the 9th and 8th millennia BP.
Aterian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stone tool culture of the Middle and Late Palaeolithic, widespread in the late Pleistocene in northern Africa. Centered on the Atlas Mountains, but with extensions into Libya and deep into the Sahara, the Aterian people were among the first to use the bow and arrow. It appears to have developed, perhaps initially in the Maghreb of Algeria and Morocco, from the local Mousterian tradition. Aterian assemblages, named after Bir el Ater in Tunisia, are marked by the presence of varied flake tools, many of which possess a marked tang. Some tools (such as side scrapers and Levallois flakes) resemble Mousterian types, but the tanged points and bifacially worked leaf-shaped points appear distinctively Aterian. The leaf-shaped blades, however, have been likened to Solutrean blades and it has often been suggested that the Aterians may have entered the Iberian Peninsula during Solutrean times. The date at which the Aterian first appeared is not well attested, but may have been c 80,000 BC. The Aterian occupation came to an end c 35,000 BC as the Sahara became drier and unsuitable for human settlement.
Athribis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tell Atrib
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Egyptian city in the Nile delta with, to this point, only the remains of a Greco-Roman settlement.
Auriculate: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A major projectile form which has rounded or pointed ears that project from the concave base or stem of points or blades.
Aurignacian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Aurignac (adj)
CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: A series of Upper Palaeolithic cultures in Europe that existed from about 35,000 to 20,000 years (dates also given as 38,000-22,000 years) ago. They were characterized by their use of stone (flint) and bone tools, refinement of those tools, and the development of sculpture and cave painting. The culture is named for the type site Aurignac, in southern France, where such artifacts were discovered. In France it is stratified between the Châtelperronian and the Gravettian (and before the Solutrean and the Magdalenian), but industries of Aurignacian type are also found eastwards to the Balkans, Palestine, Iran, and Afghanistan. At Abri Pataud there is a radiocarbon date of pre-31,000 BC for the Aurignacian, but there are possibly earlier occurrences in central and southeast Europe (Istállóskö in Hungary, Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria). There is still considerable dispute about the extent to which the Aurignacian is contemporary with the cultures of the Perigordian group in southwest France. The sites are often in deep, sheltered valleys. Split-based bone points, carinates (steep-end scrapers), and Aurignac blades (with heavy marginal retouch) are typical of Aurignacian. Aurignacian is also important as the most distinctive and abundantly represented of the early Upper Palaeolithic groups.
Australian Small Tool Tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A mid-Holocene tool industry of the Australian Aborigines that appeared some 3000-4000 years ago when those peoples began to use a new ensemble of small, flaked stone tools (although adze flakes first appeared possibly 2000 years earlier). The types consisted of backed blades and flakes, unifacial and bifacial points, and small adze flakes. There are some regional distributions of tools, including Bondi points, geometric microliths, Pirri points, and Tula adzes. All except the Bondi points and geometric microliths were still in use as parts of wooden weapons and tools at the time of European contact. The industry has close parallels in the islands of Southeast Asia, especially in the microliths of southwestern Sulawesi from 4000 BC.
Avdeevo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site near Kursk in Russia with a single occupation between 11,950-22,700 BP. There were pits and hearths and artifacts of shouldered points and animal and Venus figurines. Woolly mammoth dominates the large faunal assemblage.
awl: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: piercer, pricker, bodkin
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small tool consisting of a thin, tapering, sharp-pointed blade of bone, flint, or metal used for piercing holes, making decorations, or in assisting basketweaving.
axis of detachment: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The path of the force that removed a piece from the core of a stone tool, running from the point of impact on the platform of the artifact toward the distal end
axis of flaking: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: An imaginary line drawn roughly down the middle of a lithic flake as viewed from the dorsal side and extending from the point of percussion and is parallel to the direction of striking or the line of force during striking.
Ayacucho complex: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A valley in southern Peru, north of the city of Ayacucho, with a series of caves -- notably Pikimachay (Flea) Cave and Jayamachay (Pepper) Cave -- which were the site of a complex of unifacial chipped tools (basalt and chert core tools, choppers, unifacial projectile points) and bone artifacts (horse, camel, giant sloth) dating between 15,000-11,000 BC. A human presence has been suggested in the Ayacucho Basin at that time, which would correspond with the first wave" of immigrants to the New World. Succeeding levels contain burins blades fishtail points and manos and metates. Gourds squash cotton lucuma and seed plants such as quinoa and amaranth were cultivated in the Ayacucho Basin before 3000 BC; corn and beans within the next millennium. There were also ground stone implements for milling seeds. It has been claimed that llamas and guinea pigs were domesticated within the complex. "
Ayampitin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Cordoba, northwestern Argentina, which has evidence of a transition from Big Game Hunting to a more specialized hunting and gathering economy. The assemblage contains crude, large bifacial willow-leaf projectile points, lithic hunting tools, and tool-making debris in association with manos and milling stones, dating between 8,000-12,000 years ago.
Baikal Neolithic: CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The Neolithic period of the Lake Baikal region in eastern Siberia. Stratified sites in the area show a long, gradual move from the Palaeolithic to Neolithic stage, starting in the 4th millennium BC. The Postglacial culture was not true" Neolithic in that it farmed but Neolithic in the sense of using pottery. It was actually a Mongoloid hunting-and-fishing culture (except in southern Siberia around the Aral Sea) with a microlithic flint industry with polished-stone blade tools together with antler bone and ivory artifacts; pointed- or round-based pottery and the bow and arrow. Points and scrapers made on flakes of Mousterian aspect and pebble tools showing a survival of the ancient chopper-chopping tool tradition of eastern Asia have also been found. There was a woodworking and quartzite industry and some cattle breeding. The first bronzes of the region are related to the Shang period of northern China and the earliest Ordos bronzes. The area covers the mountainous regions from Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean and the taiga (coniferous forest) and tundra of northern Siberia. A first stage is name for the site Isakovo and is known only from a small number of burials in cemeteries. The succeeding Serovo stage is also known mainly from burials with the addition of the compound bow backed with bone plates. The third phase named Kitoi has burials with red ochre and composite fish hooks possibly indicate more fishing. The succeeding Glazkovo phase of the 2nd millennium BC saw the beginnings of metal-using but generally showed continuity in artifact and burial types. Some remains of semi-subterranean dwellings with centrally located hearths occur together with female statuettes in bone."
Balof Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter in New Ireland, Oceania, dating to c 5000 BC with a preceramic industry of obsidian and bone points. The site has one of the earliest dates for human settlement in Oceania east of New Guinea.
Bambata Cave: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A large cave of southwestern Zimbabwe, where excavations have revealed a long sequence of occupation over the past 50,000 years. The site gives its name to a stone industry and pottery type, but they are widely separated periods. There are rock paintings on the cave walls and sheep bones, found in the same archaeological levels as pottery, have been dated to 150 BC. The Bambata industry, dated between the 50th-20th millennia BC, used prepared cores to produce (unretouched) flakes for scrapers and slender unifacial or bifacial lances or spear points. Its distribution extended north to Zambia and south to the Orange Free State and perhaps the Cape. Bambata pottery ware is known only from contexts of the 1st millennium ad in Zimbabwe. It is elaborately decorated with stamped designs.
Ban Nadi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site near Ban Chiang, Thailand, occupied from c 1500 BC-250 AD. It was the location of tin-bronze production after 500 BC, with axes, projectile points, and jewelry. Iron was smelted and forged for bangles, hoes, knives, and spearheads fro c 100 BC to 200 AD. The bronze wares were bowls, bracelets, and lead-bronze bells.
barb: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: barbed (adj.)
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A subsidiary point facing opposite from the main point that makes an arrowhead or spear hard to remove
barbed and tanged arrowhead: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Triangular-shaped flint arrowheads of the later Neolithic and early Bronze Age in Europe. Distinctive in having a short rectangular tang on the base opposite the point, symmetrically set either side of which is a barb. The tang was used to secure the arrow tip to its shaft and usually projects slightly below the ends of the barbs.
basal grinding: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The grinding of projectile points at their base and lower edges (so that the lashings will not be cut), a Paleo-Indian cultural practice. Basal thinning obtains the same result through the removal of small chips instead of grinding.
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.
base shapes: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: concave, disk, flat, foot-ring, knob, loop, omphalos, C279pedestal, pod, pointed, ring, round, stump, trumpet/ogee
baths, Roman: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bathhouse
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The Roman baths featuring a combination of steaming, cleaning, and massage appeared wherever the Romans made conquests. In Rome itself the aqueducts fed sumptuous baths such as those of Caracalla, which covered 28 acres (11 hectares). From the 1st century BC onwards, the Romans built establishments called balneae or, later, thermae incorporating suites of rooms at different temperatures. A typical installation would include a tepidarium (warm room, probably without bath), a caldarium (hot, with plunge bath), a frigidarium (cold, also with bath), and an apodyterium (changing-room). Elaborate examples might also include a laconicum (room with dry heat), a swimming bath, an exercise area (palaestra), gardens, and a library. These complexes were important social meeting-points and were not limited to high society. Most large private houses from the 2nd century BC onwards had their own bath suite. The four large series of baths at Rome were built by Titus, Trajan, Caracalla, and Diocletian. Baths existed as early as the 4th century BC.
battle-ax: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: battleaxe, battle-axe
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A type of prehistoric stone weapon, designed as a weapon of war. It is always of the shaft-hole variety, and frequently has a hammer, knob, or point at the opposite end from the cutting edge. In stone, they are common throughout most of Europe in the Late Neolithic and Copper Age, and often associated with corded ware and beakers. (The term Battle-Ax culture is often used as a synonym for Corded Ware or Single Grave culture.) Further east, more elaborate ones of copper or gold were more ceremonial than functional. The Vikings made iron battle-axes and used them well into the Middle Ages. The pole-ax is distinguished from the battle-ax by a spike on the back of the ax.
battleship curve: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: battleship-shaped curve
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A lens-shaped seriation graph formed by plotted points representing artifact type frequencies. The rise in popularity of an artifact, its period of maximum popularity, and the artifact's eventual decline would be plotted, as well as its origin and disappearance.
bec: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic flake boring tool that was retouched on one edge to form a point.
beehive tomb: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: tholos
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: An architectural structure of the Mycenaean civilization, a pointed dome built up of overhanging (corbeled) blocks of conglomerate masonry cut and polished, often with an alley or approach and a great door. The rich or noble of the Bronze Age were buried in these sometimes enormous, perfectly proportioned vaults though they were built in the Shaft Grave Period as well, perhaps first in Messenia in the 16th century and then in Greece by the middle of the 15th century. The tholos tomb has three parts: a narrow entranceway, or dromos, often lined with fieldstones and later with cut stones; a deep doorway, or stomion, covered over with one to three lintel blocks; and a circular chamber with a high vaulted or corbeled roof, the thalamos. Most tholos tombs have collapsed, often when the lintel cracked and gave way, and their contents have largely been looted
Belbasi: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A cave on the southern coast of Anatolia which gave its name to a late Palaeolithic culture. The tool kit includes tanged arrowheads, triangular points, and obliquely truncated blades. There are rock engravings in shelters such as Beldibi, the only known cave art in western Asia.
Belzoni, Giovanni (1778-1823): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Italian excavator of Egyptian sites, who is known as a picturesque and unscrupulous collector of Egyptian antiques as well as a pioneer in Egyptology. Belzoni sought antiquities both for himself and for the British Consul-General on behalf of the British Museum, whose collection he enhanced enormously. His discoveries were numerous, ranging from at Thebes, the colossal sculpture of the head of Ramses II (the Young Memnon"); in the nearby Valley of the Tombs of Kings the tomb of Seti I and the aragonite sarcophagus (for the Sir John Soane's Museum London). Though he managed to take an obelisk from the Nile island of Philae (Jazirat Filah) near Aswan it was taken from him at gunpoint by agents working for French interests. He explored Elephantine (Jazirat Aswan) and the temple of Edfu (Idfu) cleared the entrance to the great temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel was first to penetrate the pyramid of Khafre at Giza and identified the ruins of the city of Berenice on the Red Sea. His methods were unnecessarily destructive by modern archaeological standards. He died in western Africa as he began a journey to Timbuktu. An account of his adventures was published in the year of his death "Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids Temples Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia" (2 vol. 1820)."
benchmark: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: A reasonably permanent, fixed point of reference, especially a point of known position and elevation used in mapping.
bending: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A detached piece produced by cracks initiated away from the point of applied force. These flakes usually have a pronounced lip, contracting lateral margins immediately below the striking platform, and no bulb of force.
Bharhut: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village, about 100 miles southwest of Allahabad, India, famous for the ruins of a Buddhist stupa built in the time of Ashoka (c 250 BC). Originally built of brick, it was enlarged during the 2nd century BC and surrounded with a stone railing with four stone gateways (toranas) placed at four cardinal points. An inscription on these gateways assigns the work to King Dhanabhuti in the rule of the Shungas (i.e., before 72 BC). The railing is decorated with scenes from the Jataka stories. The sculptures adorning the shrine are among the earliest and finest examples of the developing style of Buddhist art in India. Discovered in 1873, the stupa's sculptural remains are now mainly preserved in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, and in the Municipal Museum (Allahabad).
bifacial blank: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A biface in the early stages of production displaying only percussion flaking and no evidence of pressure flaking. In many cases, blanks were traded and/or transported from their area of origin and subsequently used as bifacial cores from which flake blanks were detached for production of dart or arrow points.
bifurcate: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bifurcated base
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A point base split into double lobes with indentation similar to notches on sides
bifurcation: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: self-organization
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A theory that order can arise spontaneously when systems are pushed far from an equilibrium state. The emergence of new structure arises at bifurcation points, or thresholds of instability.
Big Game Hunting tradition: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Big Game Hunting culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Any of several ancient North American cultures based on hunting herd animals such as mammoth and bison; the first indigenous cultural complex of the continent. It may have developed from an earlier hunting culture whose people arrived in North America between 20,000-40,000 years ago in an interstadial (break) in the Wisconsin Ice Age. It is also probable that this culture derived from a migration across the Bering Land Bridge c 13,000-14,000 BC. The remains of these cultures have been found mainly in the North American Plains as well as in the eastern and southwestern regions of North America. Lanceolate projectile points, such as Clovis and Folsom, characterize the tradition. The big-game-hunting tradition began to decline or change after 8000 BC.
bilaterally barbed: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A projectile point or harpoon with barbs on both edges
Blackwater Draw: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The deeply stratified type site for the Clovis point and Llano complex, located near Clovis, New Mexico, with evidence of occupation from the earliest Paleo-Indian through the Archaic period. Clovis points have been found associated with mammoth bones and Folsom points have been found with bison bones. Also found: Agate Basin points, Cody complex points, a Frederick point, and tools of the Archaic period. Blackwater Draw is also used to evaluate the chronological sequences at other sites. The Blackwater Draw Museum exhibits 12,000-year-old artifacts from the area's archaeological sites.
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."
Blattspitzen: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A category of stone artifact with complete or nearly complete flaking on both sides and points at one or both ends. They are found in some late Middle and early Upper Palaeolithic industries of central and eastern Europe.
blunt: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A point that abruptly terminates part way up the blade with no true distal point for piercing. Typically the point is chipped in a mild excurvate or straight edge. Some feel that the point may have been used in hunting as a stunning" weapon. However most blunts show signs as being a conserved former projectile reworked into a hand held or hafted scraper."
Bohunice: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Palaeolithic site in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. There are artifacts -- sidescrapers, denticulates, burins, and laurel-leaf points -- and some faunal remains that date to the early cold maximum of the last glacial.
Bohunician: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late Middle Palaeolithic culture of Moravia, Czechoslovakia, with artifacts including sidescrapers, endscrapers, bifacial foliates, denticulates, burins, and laurel-leaf points.
Bonneville: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bonneville period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A time in the late Pleistocene Epoch about 30,000 years ago when a prehistoric lake formed covering an estimated 20,000 square miles (52,000 sq km), over much of western Utah and parts of Nevada and Idaho in the US. These conditions existed during the interval of the last major Pleistocene glaciation. Lake Bonneville shrank rapidly in size and, by 12,000 years ago, had permanently shrunk to a point where it had become smaller than the Great Salt Lake.
Borg-in Nadur: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A fortified Bronze Age acropolis in southeast Malta and the name its culture on the island. The settlement was surrounded by walls of cyclopean masonry and enclosed oval huts. The discovery of a sherd of Mycenaean pottery points to long-distance trading contacts. Bronze Age tools and weapons have been found at Borg in-Nadur.
bow and arrow: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Weapon consisting of two parts; the bow is made of a strip of flexible material, such as wood, with a cord linking the two ends of the strip to form a tension from which is propelled the arrow; the arrow is a straight shaft with a sharp point on one end and usually with feathers attached to the other end
box-and-dot-plot: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: A type of graph used in Exploratory Data Analysis that displays the median and inter-quartile range in a box, with points to represent all the observations falling in the upper and lower quartiles.
brad: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flat nail of the same thickness that tapers in width to a point.
Brahmagiri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site and cemetery dating from at least the 2nd millennium BC in southern India. Wheeler found a Chalcolithic level (c 2800-1250 BC) with abundant microliths, polished stone axes, and crude burnished gray pottery, an Iron Age level (1st millennium BC) with black-and-red ware, 300 tombs, stone circles, and ossuaries for bones, and a level from the 1st century AD with rouletted ware and traces of Roman contact. Bone points and some evidence of a stone-blade industry have also been found. There are many cattle bones, but also sheep and goats. The culture seemed to continue with little change for many centuries.
Breitenbach: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site in eastern Germany with artifacts including endscrapers, burins, and several bone points of the Aurignacian. Faunal remains are woolly mammoth and reindeer.
bridge: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A structure forming a road over a river, etc. or allowing passage between two points above the ground. A bridge can be a simple plank or single arch or an elaborate architectural structure supported by arches, chains, girders, piers, etc. They are made of many different materials. The first bridges were natural, such as arches of rock. The first manmade bridges were flat stones or tree trunks laid across a stream to make a girder bridge. Three types of bridge -- beam or girder, arch, and suspension -- have been known and built from the earliest times.
Brommian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Allerod and Dryas culture of Denmark, southern Sweden, and northern Germany and Poland of c 10,000 BC. It resembles the Hamburgian and is characterized by the Lyngby point and Lyngby reindeer-antler ax/club.
Bug / Dniester: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bug-Dniester
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A complex of sites in two river valleys in Russia from the 5th millennium BC. Each phase is typified by short-lived sites on river terraces, occupied year-round for 5-10 years. There was hunting, fishing and shell-collecting, and some domestication of pigs, cattle, and einkorn wheat. Pointed-base pottery evolved there.
bulb of percussion: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bulb of force
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: In flint-making, a swelling or bulb left on the surface of a blade or flake directly below the point of impact on the striking platform. In other words, a swelling on a flake or blade at the point where it has been struck to detach it from a core. On the flake or blade struck off there is a rounded, slightly convex shape around this point called the bulb of percussion and on the core there is a corresponding concave bulb. The point and the bulb of percussion are rarely present if a flake has been struck off naturally, as by heat or frost. Thus the presence of a bulb of percussion makes it possible to distinguish human workmanship from natural breakage.
bulbar scar: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The irregularly shaped scar on the bulb of percussion of a struck flint flake. It marks the place where a small piece of flint is dislodged during fracture. The bulbar surface is the surface upon which the bulb of percussion occurs. This fracture pattern is evident by a bruised striking platform at the point of impact with shock waves radiating from it and, on the resultant flake, a bulb of percussion and bulbar scar. When these features are present, it is possible to distinguish human workmanship from natural breakage caused by heat or frost.
bunt: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A blunted projectile point intended to stun rather than to inflect a bleeding wound; sometimes difficult to distinguished from hafted scrapers
burin: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: graver
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A specialized engraving tool with a chipped flint or stone shaft that is cut or ground diagonally downward to form a diamond-shaped point at the tip. The angle of the point affected the width and depth of the engraved lines. The shaft of the tool was fixed in a flat handle that could be held close to the working surface. A burin had a wide rounded end for bracing against the palm of the hand and the point was guided by thumb and forefinger. A blade or flake could be formed into any one of about 20 varieties of the tool. In its most characteristic form, the working tip is a narrow transverse edge formed by the intersection of two flake scars produced by striking at an angle to the main axis of the blade. Sometimes one facet is made by simply snapping the blade, or by truncating it with a steep retouch. Burins were used to carve or engrave softer materials such as antler, bone, ivory, metal, or wood. This tool was characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic (especially Magdalenian) in the Old World and of some Early Lithic and Mesolithic cultures of the New World.
Burrill Lake: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter on the southeast coast of New South Wales, Australia, with deposits dated to the Pleistocene c 18,000 BC. Stone artifacts included flake scrapers and dentated saws. Around 3000 BC, Bondi points and other tools of the Australian Small Tool Tradition appeared.
Burzahom: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic site in the Vale of Kashmir with phases of occupation dating from c 3050 BC to the 3rd-4th centuries AD. Deep pit dwellings are associated with ground stone axes, bone tools, and coarse gray burnished pottery. These characteristics plus the absence of blades, use of pierced rectangular knives, and association of dog skeletons with human burials, all seem to point to connections with central and northern Asia, as Mongolia, rather than with the rest of the Indian subcontinent. Hunting seems to have been the main basis of the economy. Phase II has houses of mud and mudbrick and Phase III has a group of large stones arranged in a rough semicircle.
cache blade: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Quantities of points or blades found together in an underground depository or in a mound
calamus: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plural calami
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A reed or cane used by early writers, especially as an implement for scribes working on clay. Calami were usually made from reeds in Mesopotamia, but also from wood, and the point was sharpened to form a triangle. The pressure of the calamus on the clay produced the cuneiform script. Pressing lightly or firmly made longer or shorter lines.
Camare: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: An assemblage of artifacts including choppers, scrapers, leaf points, and other tools from the surface of the high terraces in Rio Pedregal, Venezuela. Dating indicates the site may have been inhabited 15,000 years ago.
Canaanite amphora: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Common transport vessel of the Late Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean. Canaanite amphoras average 30 inches in height and have a short, relatively narrow flaring mouth, a wide shoulder with two handles on it, and a tapering profile running down to a narrow pointed base. They were made in various centers in the eastern Mediterranean and were roughly contemporary with stirrup jars.
Cape Coastal Ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A Stone Age pottery style from the coast of southern Namibia to eastern Cape Province, South Africa, after c 1600 BP. It is characterized by point-based pots.
Capsian and Capsian Neolithic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Capsian industry
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mesolithic/Stone Age (8000 BC-2700 BC) cultural complex prominent in inland northern Africa near the present border between Tunisia and Algeria. Its shell midden sites are in the area of the great salt lakes of what is now southern Tunisia, the type site being Jabal al-Maqta'. The tool kit of the Capsian is a classic example of the industries of the late Würm Glacial Period and it is apparently related to the Gravettian stage of Europe's Perigordian industry (which dates from about 17,000 years ago). However, it occurs in Neothermal (postglacial) times and, like its predecessor, the Ibero-Maurusian industry (Oranian industry), the Capsian was a microlithic tool complex. It differed from the Ibero-Maurusian, however, in having a far more varied tool kit with large backed blades, scrapers, backed bladelets, microburins, and burins in its earlier phase and a gradual development of geometric microliths later. These became its leading feature by the 6th millennium BC. Shortly after 5000 BC, pottery and domesticated animals were introduced. Some North African rock paintings are attributed to people of the Capsian industry. The Capsian Neolithic, with pointed-base pottery and a stone industry, lasted from c 6200-5300 BP, in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria and the northern Sahara. The name derives from Capsa, the Latin form of Gafsa, a town in south central Tunisia where such artifacts were first discovered. Hunting and snail-collecting seem to have formed the basis of the economy. Human remains from Capsian sites are mostly of Mechta-Afalou type.
carp's tongue sword: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of bronze sword used in the Late Bronze Age in western Europe -- mainly in northwest France and southern England -- in the early 1st millennium BC. It had a broad slashing blade and a long projecting point for thrusting and a flange hilt.
casting: CATEGORY: artifact; geology
DEFINITION: Casting consists of pouring molten metal into a mold, where it solidifies into the shape of the mold. The process was well established in the Bronze Age (beginning c 3000 BC), when it was used to form bronze pieces. It is particularly valuable for the economical production of complex shapes, from mass-produced parts to one-of-a-kind items or even large machinery. Three principal techniques of casting were successively developed in prehistoric Europe: one-piece stone molds for flat-faced objects; clay or stone piece molds that could be dismantled and reused; and one-off clay molds for complex shapes made in one piece around a wax or lead pattern (cire perdue). Every metal with a low enough melting point was exploited in early Europe, except iron and steel, was used for casting artifacts.
casting: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Casting consists of pouring molten metal into a mold, where it solidifies into the shape of the mold. The process was well established in the Bronze Age (beginning c 3000 BC), when it was used to form bronze pieces. It is particularly valuable for the economical production of complex shapes, from mass-produced parts to one-of-a-kind items or even large machinery. Three principal techniques of casting were successively developed in prehistoric Europe: one-piece stone molds for flat-faced objects; clay or stone piece molds that could be dismantled and reused; and one-off clay molds for complex shapes made in one piece around a wax or lead pattern (cire perdue). Every metal with a low enough melting point was exploited in early Europe, except iron and steel, was used for casting artifacts.
Cave of Hearths: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave in northern Transvaal which yielded the right side of a Homo sapiens child's jaw, of Rhodesioid type, dating from about 50,000 years ago. It is located close to the Makapansgat site, the oldest cave site known in Africa. Both offer extremely early evidence of the use of fire by man in Africa and tools of the transitional Acheulian-Fauresmith type. The earliest deposits of the Cave of Hearths are Acheulian, followed by a long period of abandonment. There was a long succession of Pietersburg industries and some signs of typological continuity between the Acheulian and the Pietersburg assemblages. The Pietersburg industry was succeeded by an assemblage of subtriangular points and flake scrapers similar to the Bambata industry of Zimbabwe.
cephalic index: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A measurement technique used to define the relationship between the length and breadth of a human skull. The breadth of the skull is expressed as a percentage of the length and the ratio is figured as the maximum breadth to the maximum length, measured from a point just above the eyebrow ridges, multiplied by 100. This produces an index which defines the skull as round-headed (brachycephalic; a reading above 80), long-headed (dolichocephalic; a reading below 75), or in-between (meso- or mesaticephalic; a reading between 75-80). It is an important anthropological tool though it is now recognized that other methods of measurement are needed to compare skull shapes adequately.
Cerro de las Mesas: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Veracruz, Mexico, in the plains of the Papaloápan River that is a hybrid site of Pre-Classic and Classic periods. Dozens of earthen mounds are scattered over the surface in a seemingly haphazard manner, and the archaeological sequence is long and complex. The site reached its apogee in the Early Classic, when the stone monuments for which it is best known were carved. Most important are a number of stelae, some of which are carved in a low-relief style recalling Late Formative Tres Zapotes, early lowland Maya, and Cotzumalhuapa. Cerro de las Mesas pottery, deposited in rich burial offerings of the Early Classic, is much like that of Teotihuacan, with slab-legged tripods. Potters made large, hollow, handmade figures of the gods and the most spectacular discovery on the site was a cache of 782 jade objects, many of Olmec workmanship. Cerro de las Mesas is famous for Remojadas-style pottery figurines, found in great quantity as burial goods. Because the Classic occupation contains abundant Teotihuacan materials and two Maya Long Count dates (ad 468 and ad 533), it is usually interpreted as a redistribution point for materials from both Mexico and the Maya lowlands.
cestrum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: viriculum
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of ivory graver used in encaustic painting on ivory, with one pointed end.
channel flake: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The long, thin blade if stone removed longitudinally from the base of a fluted Paleo-Indian projectile point by percussion or pressure from the center line of either face. The smooth depression it leaves behind is known as a flute or channel.
Charaman: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Proto-Stillbay, Charama
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stone industry of Zimbabwe and parts of southern and central Zambia where it was the local successor of the Sangoan. Many Charaman assemblages come from surface or river-gravel occurrences, as at Victoria Falls. There are many scrapers, sub-triangular points, and other flake tools. Charaman deposits have been found in cave sites, such as Broken Hill, which yielded the remains of Homo sapiens rhodesiensis.
chekan: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A special kind of striking weapon for hand-to-hand combat. It was most widespread in southern Siberia and in Central Asia in the Scythian period. The chekan is a kind of a battle ax with a thin sharp point, made of bronze. It was fixed onto a long wooden shaft which had a bronze butt at its lower end and was worn at the waist on a special belt. Chekans are quite often decorated with zoomorphic figures in the Scythian-Siberian animal style.
Chiricahua: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The second of three chronological stages of the Cochise culture in southern Arizona and New Mexico, with dates clustering between 4000-500 BC. The appearance of distinctive, side-notched projectile points indicates an interest in hunting though a mixed food-gathering economy is indicated by assemblages commonly including cobble manos, shallow basin grinding slabs, choppers, and scrapers. There were large base camps, storage pits, and outlying specialized-activity camps that show some permanence. There is evidence from Bat Cave in New Mexico of the cultivation of primitive maize.
chisel-ended arrowhead: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of arrow tip, usually of flint or stone, that has a sharp straight cutting edge at right angles to the axis of the arrow shaft, rather than a point. Such arrowheads are believed to have been used for shooting birds.
Chivateros: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A stratified, ancient quarry/workshop site just north of Lima, Peru -- an area of coastal lomas (areas of fog vegetation). Excavations revealed a lithic flake industry as early as the Late Pleistocene, dating between 9,000 to 11,000 years ago. Wood fragments helped define a Chivateros I period of c 9500-8000 BC. There is also a red zone with some flint chips which, by comparison of artifacts of the nearby Oquendo workshop date to pre-10,500 BC. The whole industry is characterized by burins and bifaces with the upper-level (Chinateros II) containing long, keeled, leaf-shaped projectile points which resemble points from both Lauricocha II and El Jobo. Dating has been aided by the deposition of both loess and salt crust layers which suggest alternating dryness and humidity and which can be synchronized with glacial activity in the Northern Hemisphere.
Chojnice-Pienki: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late Mesolithic culture in Poland, overlapping in space and time with Janislawice culture during the late Boreal and Atlantic climatic periods. It is characterized by trapeze-shaped projectile points.
Choris: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An early form of the Norton tradition of Western Arctic pre-history, dating to c 1500-500 BC. The type site is at Kotsebue Sound. Cape Krusentern, Point Barrow, and Onion Portage are other Arctic sites with the characteristic coarse stamped pottery. Tool assemblages are diverse with some of polished slate. Oil lamps first appear in Choris times.
chromatography: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique of separating colored substances and analyzing their chemical structure by chromotographic adsorption. Differences in the rate of movement along a liquid or solid column are noted and used for the identification of organic substances. Archaeologically this can be useful for identifying sources, as for amber. There are several methods of chromatography, but particularly used in archaeology are paper and gas. In the former, a solution of the substance to be examined is placed at the end of a piece of filter paper; the end is then dipped into a solvent which moves the constituents of the sample along the paper by capillary action. Different substances reach different points on the filter paper and, by comparison with reference substances, can be identified. Gas chromatography is done by introducing the mixture into a column of material. The mixture is carried through by gases and measurements of the gas coming through over time are made by a gas detector. The use of gas chromatography in the study of amber has shown that different sources produce different chromatograms.
chronostratigraphic sequence: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: chronostratigraphic scale
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A time scale in which the sequence of geologic-time units and their corresponding time-rock divisions ( chronostratigraphic units) are defined by standard and internationally agreed reference points within boundary stratotypes.
classic example: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A subjective term used to refer to a specific point specimen which represents the truest form of a particular point type or blade.
classic, Classic, Classical: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Classical Age, Classic Period
CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: A general term referring to the period of time when a culture or civilization reaches its highest point of complexity and achievement. In a broader sense, the term often describes the whole period of Greek and Roman antiquity with the following breakdown: Early Classical Period 500-450 BC, High Classical Period 450-400 BC, and Late Classical 400-323 BC. Specifically, the term describes, in New World chronology, the period between the Formative (Pre-Classic) and the Post-Classic, which was characterized by the emergence of city-states. During the Classic stage, civilized life in pre-Columbian America reached its fullest flowering, with large temple centers, advanced art styles, writing, etc. It was originally coined for the Maya civilization, initially defined by the earliest and most recent Long Count dates found on Maya stelae, 300-900 AD. A division between Early and Late Classic was arbitrarily set at 600 AD, but since in some areas, e.g. Teothihuacan, great civilizations had already collapsed, some scholars regard this date as marking the end of the Classic Period. By extension, the word came to be used for other Mexican cultures with a similar level of excellence (Teotihuacán, Monte Albán, El Tajín). In these areas the cultural climax was roughly contemporary with that of the Maya, and the term Classic took on a chronological meaning as well. The full Maya artistic, architectural, and calendric-hieroglyphic traditions took place during the Early Classic. Tikal, Uaxactún, and Copán all attained their glory then. In the Late Classic, between 600-900 AD, ceremonial centers in the Maya Lowlands grew in number, as did the making of the inscribed, dated stelae and monuments. The breakdown of the Classic Period civilizations began with the destruction of the city of Teotihuacán in about 700 AD. Some date the Classic period to 300-900 AD.
classical: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Classic, Classical
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A general term referring to the period of time when a culture or civilization reaches its highest point of complexity and achievement. In a broader sense, the term often describes the whole period of Greek and Roman antiquity with the following breakdown: Early Classical period 500-450 BC, High Classical period 450-400 BC, and Late Classical 400-323 BC. Specifically, the term describes, in New World chronology, the period between the Formative (Pre-Classic) and the Post-Classic, which was characterized by the emergence of city-states. During the Classic stage, civilized life in pre-Columbian America reached its fullest flowering, with large temple centers, advanced art styles, writing, etc. It was originally coined for the Maya civilization, initially defined by the earliest and most Recent Long Count dates found on Maya stelae, 300-900 AD. A division between Early and Late Classic was arbitrarily set at 600 AD, but since in some areas, e.g. Teothihuacan, great civilizations had already collapsed, some scholars regard this date as marking the end of the Classic Period. By extension, the word came to be used for other Mexican cultures with a similar level of excellence (Teotihuacán, Monte Albán, El Tajín). In these areas the cultural climax was roughly contemporary with that of the Maya, and the term Classic took on a chronological meaning as well. The full Maya artistic, architectural, and calendric-hieroglyphic traditions took place during the Early Classic. Tikal, Uaxactún, and Copán all attained their glory then. In the Late Classic, between 600-900 AD, ceremonial centers in the Maya Lowlands grew in number, as did the making of the inscribed, dated stelae and monuments. The breakdown of the Classic Period civilizations began with the destruction of the city of Teotihuacán in about 700 AD. Some date the Classic period to 300-900 AD.
Clovis: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Paleo-Indian culture located on the plateau of Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas and beginning sometime prior to 10,000 BC. It is so named from its first important site near Clovis, NM. The culture is generally considered to be ancestral to the later Folsom complex and it, like Folsom, was part of the big-game hunting tradition. It is characterized by distinctive, fluted, lanceolate stone projectile points, believed to be the oldest of their type. In Arizona, Clovis projectile points have been found in association with mammoth bones. The most problematical Clovis find comes from a site in Texas where a Clovis point was found in hearths with a radiocarbon date of 37,000+ years. The type site for this complex is Blackwater Draw and its artifacts are of the Llano complex.
cluster analysis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: cluster sampling
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A multivariate statistical technique which assesses the similarities between units or assemblages, based on the occurrence or non-occurrence of specific artifact types or other components within them. It also involves comparing the distances between points or objects, whose dimensions are measurements or scores for a number of variables. Cluster analysis results are normally plotted as a dendrogram" a treelike representation of the distances between objects in hyperspace. Items that are closer together are deemed to be more closely related. Researchers select a case by random sampling and then include contiguous cases as part of the sample."
Cochise: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An ancient North American Indian culture that existed 9,000-2,000 years ago, in Arizona and western New Mexico. The culture was named for the ancient Lake Cochise (now Willcox Playa, Arizona), near which important finds were made. The Cochise, a local variant of the Desert Culture, contrasted with the Big-Game Hunting cultures to the east (Clovis, Folsom), and was based on the gathering and collecting wild plant foods. In later stages, there is evidence of the development of agriculture. The Cochise culture has been divided into three developmental periods. The earliest stage, Sulphur Spring, dates from 6000 or 7000 BC to about 4000 BC and is characterized by milling stones for grinding wild seeds and by various scrapers, but no knives, blades, or projectile points. Its type site has been associated with mammoth and extinct horse remains and there are some indications that hunting was done. During the second stage, Chiricahua, lasting from 4000 to perhaps 500 BC, the appearance of projectile points seems to indicate an increased interest in hunting, and the remains of a primitive form of maize in Bat Cave (NM) suggest the beginnings of farming. In the final or San Pedro stage, from 500 BC to the beginning of the Christian era, milling stones were replaced by mortars and pestles (mano and metate), and pit houses (houses of poles and earth built over pits) appeared. During the San Pedro stage, pottery appeared in the area of the Mogollon Indians. The poorly understood Cazador phase may bridge the long hiatus between Sulphur Springs and Chiricahua, but the evidence so far in inconclusive.
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.
coinage: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A standardized series of metal tokens, their specific weights representing particular values, and usually stamped with designs and inscriptions. They were used in many parts of the ancient world for everyday exchange. Greek coinage first appears in the Archaic deposit of the Artemision at Ephesus. Roman coinage was struck at Rome and various points throughout the empire.
complex shape: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A vessel shape that in silhouette is marked by two or more characteristic points of inflection, or changes in curvature, or by both corner and inflection points
composite shape: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A vessel shape that in silhouette is marked by characteristic points of angles or corners and lacks inflection points
compound tool: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: composite tool
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any tool made of two or more different materials, such as a bone harpoon with stone points and barbs set in it, or a wooden arrow with a shaped stone point.
contour map: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: A map having contour lines through points of equal elevation.
contracting: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In lithics, a term that refers to the width of a stem or point that is diminishing in outline.
Cook, Captain James (1728-1779): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: English navigator who made three voyages of exploration in the Pacific from 1769-1779, making many discoveries in Polynesia, Melanesia, and Australia. Though Cook was not the first European to discover most of the islands he visited, his accounts of the native peoples at the crucial point of first European contact are by far the most important in maritime history. His journals are used constantly by archaeologists who work in the Pacific region.
Cordilleran: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Cordilleran ice sheet; Laurentide
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The ice mass that covered the coastal mountains along the Pacific Ocean coast of North America from northern Washington state into southern Alaska. At its maximum extent, about 20,000 years ago, it connected with the Laurentide ice sheet to the east and with the Pacific Ocean to the west, and reached a thickness of some 3 kilometers (1 mile). The Cordilleran Geosyncline is a linear trough in the Earth's crust in which rocks of Late Precambrian to Mesozoic age (roughly 600 million to 66 million years ago) were deposited along the western coast of North America, from southern Alaska through western Canada and the United States, probably to western Mexico. The eastern boundary of the geosyncline extends from southeastern Alaska along the eastern edge of the Northern Cordillera and Northern Rocky Mountains of Canada and Montana, along the eastern edge of the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada, and into southeastern California and Mexico. The Old Cordilleran culture appeared in the Pacific Northwest about 9000 or 10,000 BC and persisted until about 5000 BC in some areas. Subsistence was based on hunting, fishing, and gathering. Simple willow-leaf-shaped, bipointed projectile points are characteristic artifacts.
Cozumel: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island located less than 20 miles off the east coast of the northern Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico that was a trading port and pilgrimage spot for the Maya. Its earliest artifacts date to c 1000 BC, but its rise began from 300 BC (Late Pre-Classic or Formative period) and its major period of occupation was the Post-Classic, c 800-1000. Cozumel was a major link in the long-distance trading network which the ancient Maya operated between Honduras and Guatemalan Highlands to the south, around the Peninsula, to Tabasco, Campeche, and Veracruz in the west. It was also a place of pilgrimage to the Mayan mood (and childbirth) goddess Ix Chel. Its ceremonial architecture, however, is considerably more modest that the great Classic centers of the mainland. Cozumel is the putative starting-point for the Itza migrations into the northern Yucatan. The Spanish explorers discovered it in 1518.
crossbow: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A bow made with a crossbow parallel to the arrow and operated by a mechanical trigger release. It was likely invented by the Chinese in the late Chou Dynasty (c 400 BC) for defending their cities. The best-preserved examples were in Ch'u state. Chinese skill in bronze casting enabled them to make the accurate trigger of several interlocking parts for the weapon's effectiveness. Cast-bronze trigger mechanisms are commonly found in late Eastern Zhou burials along with inlaid bronze bow fittings and bronze arrow points. It was the most important weapon of the Middle Ages, with its earliest appearance in Europe was in Italian cities during the 10th and 11th centuries.
cutting blade: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: end blade
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The piercing element of a composite projectile point or harpoon head. (See also projectile point.)
dagger-ax: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ko
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A bronze Chinese weapon in use from Shang Dynasty (c 1500 BC) to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). The earliest forms were broad and mounted at right angles to a wooden shaft through which the tang projected. Later forms had a slender blade which extended down the shaft at right angles to the main point to prevent it snapping.
Dalton: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A complex of the late Paleo-Indian and Archaic periods of the midwestern and eastern U.S., associated with the Dalton projectile point class. The point was varied due to reuse and resharpening. The Dalton sites indicate that hunting deer was important. Brand in northeast Arkansas and Stanfield-Worley Bluff in Alabama are the best-known sites.
Danger Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site of long occupation in western Utah, dated to 11,000-11,000 BC and having one of the most complete inventories from the Desert Tradition. Artifacts include leaf-shaped projectile points, baskets, manos, metates. The last occupation dates to after 2000 BC.
Danilo: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A Neolithic culture of the Dalmatian coast of Croatia and parts of Bosnia, dating to 4700-3900 BC. The site consists of large numbers of pits and post holes, whose associated material has been subdivided typologically into five phases. There are two associated pottery styles, painted in black and broad red bands on buff ware, and incised on dark burnished ware, belong in the Middle Neolithic. The geometric designs suggest connections with contemporary wares in Italy, particularly Ripoli and Serra D'Alto. There was also a long blade and tanged point stone industry closely related to fishing.
Dart: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A projectile point hafted to a shaft that utilized a throwing stick or atlatl or blowgun.
datum line: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: meridian; datum plane
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: An imaginary line that is measured in a north-south direction. It is a fixed line of reference and should extend for a sufficient distance to cover the area of probable excavation. It should conform to a true meridian of longitude and it enables the surveyor to position accurately any point on the site in relation to its orientation (its north-south axis). This is the point of reference from which all vertical measurements (elevations) are made; can be arbitrary or calculated from height above sea level.
Denalian culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Denali complex
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A prehistoric culture or complex of central Alaska (the Tangle Lakes) dating to c 10,500-7000 BC. Similar to the Siberian Dyuktai (Diuktai) culture and defined by H. West in 1967, it is characterized by wedge-shaped microcores, microblades, burins, and bifacial points, scrapers on flakes, and large blades.
Denbigh Flint complex: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Arctic Small Tool Tradition flint industry found at Cape Denbigh, Iyatayet, Cape Krusenstern, Onion Portage, and other Alaskan sites. The typical artifacts are finely worked microblade tools (bladelets, small crescents), burins, and bifacially pressure-flaked points. The Denbigh complex had developed by c 3200 BC. The Arctic Small tool tradition spread eastwards over the whole Arctic zone from Alaska to Greenland and contributed to the earliest Eskimo cultures. Land mammals seem to have been the primary focus of subsistence activity.
Desert culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Desert tradition
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A hunting-and-gathering way of life adapted to the post-Pleistocene conditions of the arid and semi-arid zones of the American West from Oregon to California, and with extensions into similar areas of Mexico. Agriculture was unknown or unimportant, and the small nomadic bands lived by collecting wild plants and hunting game. The concept was devised by J. Jennings at Danger Cave. Typical artifacts include grinding stones, basketry, small projectile points, and spear throwers. There is an absence of ceramics. Their mode of subsistence was established c 9000 BC and lasted until agriculture had developed sufficiently to permit settled life. In Mexico, farming villages were widespread by 2000 BC. In the southwestern US, this did not occur until the last few centuries BC.
Devil's Lair: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A limestone cave near the southwest coast of Western Australia, containing deep, well-preserved organic and stone deposits dating from 27,000-10,000 BC. It is one of the longest occupation sequences in Australia, with well-defined hearths and occupation floors and a rich faunal assemblage. The stone assemblage included cores, scrapers, denticulate flakes, retouched flakes, and adze flakes of chert or quartz. Undersea-drill cores from the nearby continental shelf have produced the same Eocene chert from a zone which would have been exposed during Pleistocene low sea-levels. Three unifacially incised limestone plaques (10,000-18,400 BC) and a piece of artificially perforated marl have been interpreted as ritual items or adornments. Bone tool artifacts included points dating to c 27,000 BC and beads of macropod (kangaroo/wallaby) fibulae between 13,000-10,000 BC, claimed to be the oldest known ornaments in Australia.
diachronic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: diachronous; antonym: synchronous
CATEGORY: term; chronology
DEFINITION: Referring to two or more reference points in time, especially as they pertain to phenomena as they occur or change over a period of time; a chronological perspective. The term refers to actions or things, as in the study of artifacts in a region as they change across sequential periods.
digging stick: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A straight, often pointed, wooden tool for loosening or digging up the ground. It was used in food-gathering economies to turn up roots or burrowing animals, and in Neolithic communities for cultivation until displaced by the hoe and later (in the Old World) by the plow. It could be made more efficient by adding a perforated stone as a weight onto the shaft near the lower end.
Dingcun: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ting-ts'un
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Middle Palaeolithic sites in Shanxi Province, China, with human remains, flake tools, points, and stone balls. It is the type site of the culture.
dispersal method: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of point-pattern analysis that attempts to determine whether the patterning of items of interest can be explained by random dispersal from a given point or whether they have been clustered during dispersal.
distal: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Located away from the point of origin or attachment or a central point. In anatomy, the part of a long bone (leg or arm) which is furthest from the body; the opposite end is the proximal.
distance method: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of point-pattern analysis that measures distances from items of interest to all other items of interest. Statistical tests determine whether the items are distributed randomly.
distance-decay function: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: distance decay
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A mathematical expression of the inverse ratio between the quantity of a substance and the distance from its source; the rate at which interaction declines as the distance from the source increases. This function is a specific example of linear regression analysis and can be used to describe the relationship between the amount of a given commodity found at any point and the place from which it was exported. The patterns and mathematical expressions help to distinguish different forms of trade and exchange. In general, distance-decay varies with the value of the object traded, with the richer items spreading further from the source.
Doian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Eibian
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stone industry found exclusively in the southern and eastern areas of Somalia and northeastern Kenya in East Africa. Doian assemblages contain pressure-flaked small points, backed microliths, and flake scrapers. A post-Pleistocene age is possible but not yet determined.
Dorset: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Dorset tradition
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A prehistoric Eskimo culture that settled in the eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland around 1000 BC and lasted until 1000 AD when it was replaced by the Thule culture. The earliest manifestation, known as pre-Dorset (in some areas as Sarqaq) is represented at sites on Baffin Island and dates from c 2400 BC. The Dorset subtradition developed from pre-Eskimo Arctic Small Tool tradition. A typical site of the late Dorset subtradition is Port aux Choix 2 in western Newfoundland with house and storage pits. They hunted sea mammals and caribou. The tradition had a stone tool assemblage of end scrapers and spear points and they were also known for beautiful carvings of animals and humans in bone, ivory, and wood.
dot density map: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: A type of map using a random pattern of points to represent the value in a given area - the more points the higher the value.
Dry Creek: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The most important prehistoric site in Alaska, in the foothills of the Alaska Range in the south-central region. The lowest layer is assigned to the Nenana complex, the middle microblade assemblage to the Denali complex (10,690 bp), and the upper side-notched points are classed as Northern Archaic (4670-3430 bp).
duo-notch: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Point with double set of notches
Dyuktai: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Diuktai, Dyuktai Cave
CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic culture of northeast Siberia with the type site being the Dyuktai Cave at the confluence of the Dyuktai and Aldan rivers. It is characterized by bifacial tools of various shapes, burins on flakes and blades, blades, and microblades. The industry was associated with mammoth, bison, and horse bones and is similar to the Denali complex of Alaska. The cave's earliest occupation dates to c 33,000 BC and the culture seems to have ceased c 10,000 BC. The people who first migrated into North America may have been from this cultural group and it may be ancestral to the earliest lithic technologies, in particular the bifacially flaked points, of North America.
Dzhruchula: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Middle Palaeolithic cave in the Greater Caucasus of Georgia with two main cultural layers. Tools are scrapers and points and the newer assemblage has Levallois technique tools and blades.
Dzierzyslaw: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site in Poland with an assemblage of scrapers and laurel-leaf points of the Szeletian and probably dating to the middle of the last glacial period.
ear: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pointed or rounded projections from the base or hafting area of certain projectile points.
Early Later Stone Age: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ESLA
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: An informal designation for the microlithic late Pleistocene Stone Age industry of some sites in South Africa. One such site is Border Cave, characterized by small backed pieces, bone points, ostrich eggshell beads, and incised bone and wood.
Early Lithic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Paleo-Indian
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A term applied to the earliest stage in New World history, when man first appeared and started hunting and gathering. The period is characterized by large projectile points and percussion-chipped stone tools suitable for the slaughter and butchering of big game.
earthwork or earthworks: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: Any early structure built from a mound or bank of earth, often created as fortification. In the plan of earthworks, the heads of the line of tadpoles" is the top or highest point."
Eastern Gravettian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic industry across central and eastern Europe during the last glacial maximum, c 30,000-20,000 BP. Assemblages include shouldered points, backed blades, and some Venus figurines.
Efimenko, Pyotr Petrovich (1884-1969): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A Russian archaeologist who made important contributions to the development of Palaeolithic archaeology, promoting the study of sociological aspects from a Marxist viewpoint. He made the first discovery of a Palaeolithic longhouse (Kostenki) and later published a major work on Palaeolithic prehistory, Primeval Society"."
Ehringsdorf: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Pleistocene site in eastern Germany near Weimar. A badly broken skull and other human remains have been found with stone tools resembling the Mousterian. The fossil man is of generalized Neanderthal type and the artifacts include scrapers, points, and bifaces which were typical of the Middle Palaeolithic. Often ascribed to the last interglacial (about 120,000 years ago), the remains have also been dated by the uranium series method to about 225,000 years ago.
Eibian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Doian
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A microlithic Later Stone Age industry in East Africa, characterized by pressure-flaked points and other tools and dating to the late Pleistocene.
El Inga: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Preceramic Paleo-Indian site in Ecuador at a height of 9100 ft in Rio Inga gorge. There is an obsidian workshop and hunting campsite with an estimated date of 10,000 BC. Fishtail stemmed points show technological similarities to the Clovis/Folsom points of Fell's Cave. The variety of point styles and tool types suggest that several cultures may be represented, covering over 5000 years of intermittent occupation and evidence for man's southward passage through South America.
El Jobo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of preagricultural hunting sites in northwest Venezuela where Pleistocene tools have been found on old river terraces. There is a distinctive leaf-shaped spear point (the Jobo point) which has also been found at mammoth-kill sites in neighboring parts of Venezuela, where radiocarbon dates confirm a late Pleistocene age (13,000-7000 BC). The crude chopping tools from El Jobo may belong to an earlier period. Some archaeologists prefer to see the complex as a local development unassociated with the movement of Big Game Hunters into South America.
el Khiam: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Palestine with a distinctive point of the PPNA lithic industry. The point is a truncated and symmetrically notched bladelet with a tip formed by marginal retouching.
el-Wad: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cave site on Mount Carmel, Israel, with an industry of the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic containing Mousterian tools and Emiran points. That level was followed by Aurignacian-like Upper Palaeolithic levels, Atlitian layers, and Natufian levels.
electron probe microanalysis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: electron probe microanalyzer
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A physical method of chemical analysis which can determine the constituent elements in metal, stone, glass, pigments/stains, and pottery/ceramics. The technique is slightly destructive, requiring the removal of a small sample from the artifact. An electron beam is used to excite the atomic electrons and the result is the emission of secondary X-rays with characteristic wavelengths for the elements concerned. The beam can be focused on to a very small area of the specimen, and can be moved around to sample different points: thus the method is particularly useful for the study of surface enrichment in metals and of pigments. It can be used with samples as small as 10 -11 cubic centimeter and is similar to XRF (X-ray fluorescence spectrometry).
electronic distance measuring devices: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: EDM
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Any surveying or mapping instrument using electronics and infrared or laser beams in measuring and calculating distances, points, and angles. They often work with computers.
Emirean: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Emiran
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An early Upper Palaeolithic industry of the Levant region, named for the Emireh cave at the north end of the Sea of Galilee (Israel) which yielded tools and triangular arrowheads with a base tapered by means of bifacial retouches (Emireh points). It is the earliest stage of the Upper Palaeolithic recognized in the eastern Mediterranean region. The Emiran is believed to date from about 30,000 bc and may be transitional from the Mousterian.
Encanto: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A series of sites on the central coastline of Peru, including Chilca, which constitute a cultural phase which began to exploit maritime resources and cultivation, c 3750-2500 BC. Stone artifacts include milling stones, small percussion-flaked projectile points, and simple scrapers as well as bone and wooden tools. The changing subsistence patterns resulted from the decreasing availability of lomas vegetation.
endblade: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A small blade tool, often bipointed and used to tip bone and antler arrowheads. Triangular endblades were probably used to tip harpoon heads.
envelope: CATEGORY: artifact; language
DEFINITION: A hollow clay ball of spherical, ovoid, or oblong shape holding tokens and usually bearing seal impressions. Clay envelopes, dating from 3500 BC, have markings corresponding to the clay shapes inside. Moreover, these markings are more or less similar to the shapes drawn on clay tablets that date back to about 3100 BC. These markings are thought to constitute a logographic form of writing consisting of some 1,200 different characters representing numerals, names, and such material objects as cloth and cow. Tokens placed in an envelope might have constituted a sort of bill of lading" or a record of indebtedness. To serve as a reminder of the contents of the envelope so that every reader would not need to break open the envelope to read the contents corresponding shapes were impressed upon the envelope. But if the content was marked on the envelope there was no need to put the tokens in an envelope at all; the envelope could be flattened into a convenient surface and the shapes impressed on it. Now that there was no need for the tokens at all their message was simply inscribed into the clay. These shapes drawn in the wet clay with a reed stylus or pointed stick constituted the first writing."
Esh Shaheinab: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The type site for the Khartoum Neolithic in the Sudan, dated to the second half of the 4th millennium BC. Fishing was evidently of major importance and was conducted both by means of shell fish-hooks and with harpoons whose barbed bone points were pierced for attaching a line. Edge-ground axes and adzes were made of bone and stone. The microlithic stone industry and the pottery were very similar to those from Early Khartoum. Domestic stock has radiocarbon dates of 5300 bp.
ethnographic present: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: That point in time when a traditional culture came into contact with individuals from literate cultures, and was documented by them.
ethnos: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The ethnic group, defined as a firm aggregate of people, historically established on a given territory, possessing in common relatively stable peculiarities of language and culture, and also recognizing their unity and difference as expressed in a self-appointed name (ethnonym).
exchange: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: directional trade; exchange system
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A system which promotes the transfer of goods and services between people, either individuals or societies. The term 'trade' may be used to mean the same, but it often refers more specifically to the formalized economic relationships of modern societies. Three different forms of exchange can be found: reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange. There are also different spatial patterns of traded items, which can reveal the mode of exchange. In 'down-the-line' exchange, a commodity is passed successively from one group to another even further away from its source. The pattern will show a distinct decline in the quantity of the item as distance from the source increases; the higher the value of the item, the further it will reach. In 'directional exchange', where a commodity is traded directly from its source to a distant point without any intermediate exchange, the pattern of decreasing quantities with increasing distance will be distorted with a local concentration. Primitive forms of exchange include barter, gift exchange, potlatch, and silent trade.
expanding: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In lithics, referring to the width of a stem or point that is getting larger or wider
false entrance: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: false door
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: An elaborate architectural element of Egyptian tombs and mortuary temples which was a dummy entrance where the true entrance would normal be. The false entrance was for show and it served as the focal point of a tomb and had a door carved or painted, presumably through which the ka could enter and leave at will when partaking of funerary offerings. These first appeared in tombs of the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC). The term also refers to a phenomenon found in megalithic tombs in the British Isles, where an apparent entrance to a chamber, often leading from a forecourt, is in fact a dummy and the real chambers open not from the end but the side of the mound.
false relief: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A form of excised or impressed decoration on pottery in which two rows of inward pointing triangles are cut from, or impressed on, the pot surface. The zigzag running between them then appears to be in relief, though it is actually no higher than the surface of the pot.
Fauresmith: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An older term used to refer to the final Acheulian phase in the southern African interior. It was a Stone Age industry with tools representing a development from the final Acheulian handax tradition; the handaxes were small, were well-finished, and pointed. At Saldanha, Fauresmith artifacts were likely contemporary with a Neanderthal-like skull similar to the one from Broken Hill.
feather termination: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: feather fracture, feather-edged flaking, feathered (adj.)
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A gradual thinning of a lithic flake at the distal end to an extremely sharp point or edge.
feature termination: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: feature fracture
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A gradual thinning of a lithic flake at the distal end to an extremely sharp point or edge.
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.
Fell's Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Preceramic (Palaeoindian) cave site in Chile (Pantagonia) dating to 9050-8770 bc. The Pleistocene bones of horse and ground sloth are found together with crude chopping tools, bone awls, disks of lava, and pressure-flaked fluted, stemmed fishtail projectile points. Radiocarbon dates at Fell's Cave and Palli Aike suggest that man had spread south to the Straits of Magellan by the 9th millennium BC.
ficron: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A long pointed, roughly worked biface with slightly concave sides and a detailed tip. It may have preceded the Micoquian biface.
Fiji: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An archipelago in eastern Melanesia. Archaeological evidence shows that Fiji was settled by Austronesian-speaking peoples in the late 2nd millennium BC, and they developed pottery by about 1300 BC. A rich archaeological sequence begins with the Lapita culture from about 1300 BC, and progresses through successive ceramic phases to a period of earthwork for construction and warfare, starting after c 1100 AD. Fijians are a Melanesian/Polynesian population, and their islands formed the main bridgehead for the Polynesian settlement of western Polynesia soon after 1300 BC. Fiji is the most easterly point in Oceania to have maintained production of pottery throughout its pre-history. The Dutch navigator Abel Tasman explored the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni in 1643.
filigree: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: filagree, filigraine
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A technique of decorating jewelry with gold, silver, or electrum soldered onto metalwork. It consists of creating a fine open metalwork pattern out of wire which is soldered together and to the main body of the piece. The wire can be plain or decorative. For goldwork, the solder was normally a gold-copper alloy (82% gold, 18% copper), which had a lower melting point than pure gold. The word is derived from the Italian 'filigrana' which is 'filum' and 'granum' or 'granular network'. It was first developed in the Near East and was often used in combination with granulation. The technique had been mastered by the Early Dynastic Sumerian craftsmen of the 3rd millennium BC and fine jewelry decorated in this way appears in the Royal Tombs of Ur. Anglo-Saxon and Germanic metalworkers greatly developed the technique.
flake blade: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: flake-blade
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An imprecisely defined elongated flaked stone artifact with dorsal ridges associated with sub-Saharan African Middle Stone Age collections. Unlike true blades, flake-blades do not necessarily have parallel sides, nor are they necessarily at least twice as long as they are wide. They were usually end-struck off cores, frequently taper to a point to form artifacts termed convergent or pointed flake-blades, and often have faceted platforms. Some examples were retouched to form knives or denticulate or notched tools.
flake scar: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A mark or trace on a stone showing the point of attachment of a flake that has been removed; the point where a flake has been chipped off in the making of a tool.
flaked stone: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: chipped stone, flaked stone tool, flaked stone artifacts
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Any object made by one of the various percussion or pressure techniques of stone tool technology. Tools produced by the removal of flakes (or chips, commonly referred to as debitage) from the stone to create a sharp surface. Projectile points, bifaces, unifaces, and cores are common flaked stone artifact types.
flaking: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The process of making stone tools by removing flakes from a larger mass, by percussion or pressure from another tool. Percussion flaking is done by striking the stone to be chipped with another stone or bone. Pressure flaking is done by pressing a blunt-pointed tool of antler or bone against the edge to be worked. Flaking is feasible with materials that are glassy in nature and fracture evenly (as obsidian, flint); it is not feasible with materials such as granite or sandstone which in general are ground.
flute: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A channel or grove running up a pillar or running up the center of a projectile point made of stone. In architecture, a flute resembles half of a flute split longitudinally, with the concave side outwards. In referring to projectile point artifacts, the mark is a distinctive longitudinal groove left on the point after removal of a channel flake. It is characteristic of Folsom and Clovis points.
fluxgate magnetometer: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A magnetometer with sensors giving a continuous reading for subsurface detection. All measurements must be made with the sensor pointing in the same precise direction.
Folsom: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Folsom culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A village in northeastern New Mexico which lends its name to the remains of a prehistoric culture first found there and especially to its characteristic projectile point (Folsom point). It was a Stone Age culture, characterized by refinement of fluted projectile points, marking a significant advance over the projectile points of the earlier Clovis culture. The culture is believed to be 10-13,000 years old (11,000-10,200 BP). It was the scene of one of the first New World discoveries of artifacts associated with extinct fauna (the remains of 23 extinct giant bison). Folsom points are usually dated between c 9000-8000 BC. Folsom points are slightly different from Clovis: smaller, with their widest dimension near the middle rather than towards the base; more concave base than Clovis, and edges of Folsom points were retouched. Another site, Blackwater Draw has its Folsom layer dated to 8340 BC.
foreshaft: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: fore-shaft
CATEGORY: artifact; lithics
DEFINITION: The front part of something, as of a projectile point.
foreshaft: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: fore-shaft
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The front part of something, as of a projectile point.
Fort Rock Cave: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Fort Rock Basin
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Pleistocene site in Oregon dated to over 13,000 BP and associated sites with a long sequence of occupation in the same lake basin. Deposits of pumice from an eruption of nearby Mount Mazama in c 5000 bc provided excellent chronological control for these sites. Associated artifacts, including a mano and metate, projectile points, and other stone artifacts indicate an early hunting and gathering subsistence pattern for this period. Later contexts contain artifacts of the Desert Tradition. Occupation continued into historic times, but looting has caused the archaeological record to be unreliable after c 1000 BC.
fracture-based: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Special chipping technique that knocked off long thin slivers of flint from point edges, usually done on base bottom, occasionally on lower shoulders
Fromms Landing: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A limestone shelter site in the Lower Murray River Valley of South Australia with human occupation from c 3000 BC and deposits spanning 5000 years. The evidence parallels the nearby sequence of Devon Downs and includes stone artifacts (Pirri points and microliths) and a well-preserved dingo skeleton dated to 1000-1200 BC.
funerary cult: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Any of a number of ongoing rituals, with their associated offerings, performed for the benefit of the deceased at the tomb or in a funerary temple. Cults were mainly made up of relatives or specially appointed priests. Funerary or mortuary temples were the shrines for the funerary cults of dead kings.
Gagarino: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site in the Don River basin in European Russia. The artifacts, including shouldered points and Venus figurines have been assigned to the Kostenki-Willendorf culture or the Eastern Gravettian as the dates are 30,000-21,800 bp. The people were mammoth hunters who also carved bone and ivory.
Garcel, El: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: El Garcel
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Neolithic hilltop settlement in Almeria, southeast Spain, the type site of the earlier phase of the Almerian culture, c 5th millennium BC. Excavations have produced evidence of wattle-and-daub round houses, storage pits, undecorated round- and pointed-based pottery and, before the end of the settlement, copper slag, suggesting the local development of metallurgy.
gold: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A chemical element; a dense, lustrous, yellow precious metal with several qualities that have made it exceptionally valuable throughout history. It is attractive in color and brightness, durable to the point of virtual indestructibility, highly malleable, and usually found in nature in a comparatively pure form. It was one of the first metals to be exploited by man. Early working was basically by hammering, to which more complicated techniques like casting, soldering, granulation, and filigree were later added.
gorge: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A bipointed object of bone (or other material) which was tied to a fishing line and caught in the fish's mouth
Graman: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of rock shelters in a valley of the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia with human occupation dated between c 3000-1000 BC. Stone artifacts included some of the earliest Bondi points and geometric microliths, grinding slabs, adze flakes, awls, perforated pendant fragments, and bone points.
granulation: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A technique used in the decoration of jewelry by soldering it with grains of gold, electrum, or silver. Tiny spherical drops of metal were soldered on to a background, forming the required pattern and giving it a granular texture. The drops may have been made by heating a gold wire until a drop formed, or by melting gold and slowly pouring it into cold water. As also for filigree, the solder was normally a gold-copper alloy with a lower melting point than gold. First used as early as the 3rd millennium BC, it was widely known in western Asia and Egypt. The ancient Greeks perfected the technique, but by the 5th century BC granulation had been largely replaced by filigree in Greek work. The art of granulation probably reached its peak with the Etruscans between the 7th and 6th centuries BC, in the elaborately granulated and embossed earrings, pronged shoulder clasps for clothes, and beads found in Etruscan tombs. Granulation was particularly important in India and Persia after contact with the Roman Empire.
graver: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: burin
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A stone tool manufactured from a flake by chipping (pressure-flaking) it on two edges at one end so as to leave a sharp point. Gravers were to cut or score soft materials such as bone, shell, wood, and antler; perhaps for punching leather and other purposes. The term also refers to a type of metalworking tool which comprises a number of subtypes, though all are hand-held, hard, and sharp and are used to cut or engrave metal. Such a graver has a metal shaft that is cut or ground diagonally downward to form a diamond-shaped point at the tip. The angle of the point affects the width and depth of the engraved lines; the point is guided by thumb and forefinger.
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.
Great Wall of China: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A monumental building project which created a wall running (with all its branches) about 4,000 miles (6,400 km) west to east from Bohai Bay to a point deep in central Asia, the Tarim Basin. Parts of the vast fortification date from the 4th century BC. In 214 BC, the first emperor of a united China (Shih Huang-ti of the Qin dynasty) connected a number of existing defensive walls into a single system fortified by watchtowers, which served both to guard the rampart and to communicate with the capital, Hsien-yang, by signal -- smoke by day and fire by night. The enemy against whom the Great Wall was built were the Hsiung-nu, the nomadic tribes of the northern steppes. The wall was originally made of masonry and rammed earth and was faced with brick on its eastern portion. It was substantially rebuilt in later times, especially in the 15th and 16th centuries. The basic wall is generally about 30 feet high, and the towers are about 40 feet high.
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.
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.
grid layout: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: grid system, grid method, box system, grid planning
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The practice of dividing an archaeological site into squares for ease of recording features and objects during excavation. The term also refers to the two-dimensional intersecting network defining the squares in which archaeologists dig; usually set out with strings, stakes, and a transit. Often a square trench will be cut within each grid square, separated by a balk from each neighboring trench. Each square is suitable for excavation by two or three people. Advantages of the method are in the creation of a number of readily available sections on the site, the ease of spoil removal (along the balk), and the control which can be exercised over excavators. On open sites with little stratigraphy above the rock surface, the method is often unnecessary. The balks in the grid method may also obscure many of the important stratigraphical relationships, or make impossible the recognition of structures. This technique allows the fast recording of very large areas, but is not as accurate as triangulation for the pinpointing of small objects and features. The use of grid planning and triangulation together often satisfies most of the combined needs of speed and accuracy.
guardapua: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pointed wooden implement, possibly used in ritual blood-letting
guide flake: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: guided flakes
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any small flakes taken from the bases of fluted points prior to the removal of channel flakes and intended to guide the direction and width of the flute
guisarme: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A long handled weapon which has a long blade in line with the shaft, sharpened on both sides and ending in a point.
Guitarrero Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A stratified cave site of long occupation in the Callejón de Huaylas in northern Peru. It was occupied in the Preceramic period (c 12,500-6000 years ago) and continued through later ceramic periods, showing domesticated lima and common beans by c 8000 BC. A wide variety of artifacts, lithic and organic, in Guitarrero I (10,610 @ 360 bc) contains flaked tools similar to the Ayacucho complex and Tagua-Tagua. Stemmed points similar to those in Lauricocha II were found in the same level. There is evidence that the site was occupied by hunter-gatherers and that the subsistence was transhumance. The dates of some human bones, if dated correctly, represent the earliest human remains yet found in South America. Guitarrero II has produced a series of radiocarbon dates covering the period c 8500-5700 BC and contains bone and wood artifacts, basketry an loosely woven textiles, and the willow-leaf projectile point.
Gvardzhilas-Klde: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic cave site in the Greater Caucasus of Georgia. Artifacts include backed blades, Gravettian points, needles, and harpoons.
hachure: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: In mapmaking and drawing, short lines laid down in a pattern to indicate direction of slope on the survey of an earthwork. The hachure points downhill and its length is related to the steepness of the slope.
hafting: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The manner in which a projectile point or other stone tool is attached to a handle or shaft.
halberd: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A weapon with a pointed or V-shaped blade mounted at right angles to its haft (handle), yet with its flat surface in the same plane as the shaft, and used with a chopping motion. In bronze it was popular in the European Early Bronze Age (mainly in Ireland and central Europe) and appears again in the Chinese Bronze Age.
Hamburgian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Late Upper Palaeolithic culture of north Germany and the Low Countries, contemporary with the Magdalenian of France, c 13,000-11,750 BP. It was the culture of the first people to colonize north Germany and the Low Countries after the final retreat of the Pleistocene ice sheets had made the area available for settlement. The Hamburgians may have been the descendants of Eastern Gravettian or peripheral Magdalenian groups. They were reindeer hunters whose tools are small, single-shouldered points, harpoons, endscrapers, microburins, and 'zinken' (small beaked borers used for working antler).
hand ax: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: hand ax, hand-ax, handaxe; biface
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A large bifacially worked core tool, normally oval, pointed, or pear-shaped, and one of the most typical stone tools of the Lower Palaeolithic. It is the diagnostic implement of certain Lower Palaeolithic industries (Abbevillian, Chellean, Acheulian), and one variety of the Mousterian. In spite of the name it was not an ax at all and probably served as an all-purpose tool. The oldest and crudest hand axes have been found in Africa; the finer, Acheulian, tools are known from most of Africa, Europe, southwest Asia and India. It was used for chopping, chipping, flaking, cutting, digging, and scraping. Hand axes first appear between one and two million years ago and they were common in assemblages for about a million years.
Harifian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A hunter-gatherer culture of Negev and Sinai who lived in the desert and in seasonal camps and had a Late Natufian lithic industry. The Harif point was an obliquely truncated bladelet with pointed base formed by microburin technique and a steep retouch.
harpoon: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A spearlike missile with a detachable head, often consisting of a pointed shaft with backward-pointing barbs. It was often loosely hafted so that it would separate from its shaft after the point had struck its target. The appearance of this weapon is associated in particular with the Magdalenian culture, was particularly popular during the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, and was used for hunting or fishing. An attached line was used to retrieve the catch. Some anthropologists refer to all barbed bone or antler points as harpoons.
Hassi Mouilah: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Algerian Capsian Neolithic site of c 5300 BP with point-based pots with impressed decoration, projectile points, geometric microliths, ostrich eggshell and amazonite beads.
Healy Lake: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric site in Tanana Valley, Alaska with four cultural layers starting c 11,000-10,000 bp. That layer contained Chindadn points and microblades.
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.
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).
Hopewell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hopewellian culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An agricultural subculture of the Woodland Stage Complex settling in Ohio and Illinois around 100 BC and lasting to 500 AD. It was one of the most advanced Indian cultures of North America, with conical or dome-shaped burial mounds, large enclosures with earthen walls, and fine pottery with corded or stamped decoration. Farming was practiced and trade brought exotic raw materials from many parts of the continent. Hopewell is noted for its minor art objects, such as carved platform pipes, ornaments cut out of sheet copper or mica, Yellowstone obsidian, distinctive broad-bladed points, and ceremonial obsidian knives -- often found in rich burials of the Hopewell rulers. Between 200 BC-600 AD, the Hopewell Interaction Sphere" flourished in the Midwest which constituted Hopewell religious cults and distinctive burial customs associated with a widespread (through trading) art tradition. The culture which had both agriculture and hunting-gathering succeeded the Adena culture."
Horsham: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern England where a number of Mesolithic flints have been found, including a hollow-based point which is sometimes called a Horsham point. It was once considered characteristic of a Horsham culture or group.
Hoshino: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic site in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, with many cultural strata providing the stone tool chronology for the Kanto region. Tools, mostly of chert, were recovered from 13+ layers and choppers, scrapers, and flakes in the lowest layers are 40-50,000 bp according to radiocarbon and fission track ages of pumice beds between the layers. Blades and bifacial points in the top layers date to between 21,000-10,000 years ago. The dates are considerably older than most of the Japanese Palaeolithic sites, lending support to the idea that the archipelago was occupied in the Middle Pleistocene.
Howiesonspoort: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Howiesons Poort
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Middle Stone Age industry of southern Africa's Cape Province. It is characterized by the appearance of small blades, standardized backed tools (e.g. segments), and some unifacial and bifacial points at a time when most stone industries were still based upon the production of flakes struck from discoidal cores. The radiocarbon dates are greater than 40,000 years old. In addition to the type site, the industry has been investigated at Klasies River Mouth, Epi-Pietersburg, and Montagu Cave.
Humaitá: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A lithic tradition of southeastern Brazil, dated to the 5th millennium BC and continuing into the Christian era. The earliest artifacts are rough unifacial flakes and some bifacial boomerang shapes, flake knives, choppers, and scrapers -- all for hunting. Bifacial projectile points begin to appear more in the 3rd millennium BC and semi-polished axes and grooved bola stones were added in c 2000-1000 BC. The complex had no pottery.
impact fracture: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A breakage of the distal tip of a projectile which is characterized by a missing portion of the tip and an elongate fracture scar extending along one face of the blade. Usually occurring during impact when a point was thrown or shot.
Ingaladdi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A sandstone rock shelter in the Australian Northern Territory known for two well-separated stone industries and for art. The upper levels date 3000 bp and contained a Australian Core Tool assemblage with points and tula adze flakes. The unifacial points included some with denticulated margins and others classed as Pirri points. Rock paintings include Wandjina style mythical beings, animals, men on horseback, and revolvers. Fragments of Panaramitee-style engravings were found in layers dated 5000-3000 BC. Following a sterile layer, the lower layers contained large flake scrapers, horsehoof cores, and engraved sandstone fragments of 7000-5000 bp.
interface: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The point of contact between two layers or features in an excavation, stratigraphically important. An example is the point between the fill of a buried ditch and the soil through which it was dug.
interval scale: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: A measurement scale in which values not only have inherent order, but also consistent intervals between points on the scale, making addition and subtraction operations possible.
Intihuasi Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Argentinian site with long occupation and clear chronological continuity and similar to the Desert Tradition. Its lowest level, dated to c 6000 BC, contains willow-leaf points and other hunting tools in association with manos, milling stones, and ground-stone ornaments. Other levels contain medium-sized triangular points, bone projectile points, and a ceramic level (c 750 AD).
Ipiutak: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Eskimo/Inuit culture of northwestern Alaska, probably dating from the 2nd to the 6th century AD. The type site at Point Hope is the largest Eskimo/Inuit village ever discovered in Alaska. The village had about 600 houses and many burials accompanied by finely carved bone and ivory objects. The art style includes animal forms which show links with Siberia and northern Eurasia. The people were sea and land hunters and expert stoneworkers with no pottery. A Siberian origin has been suggested, based on similarities in burial practices and ceremonialism, animal carvings and designs, and some use of iron; there seem to be links with the Kachemak culture. It has also been suggested that the culture developed from the Choris-Norton-Near Ipiutak subtradition, intermingled with Northern Maritime and Siberian influences. Ipiutak is particularly important for its demonstration of the continuing influence of Siberian cultures on the Eskimo/Inuit tradition. It is the most recent variation of the Norton tradition, a series of Arctic Alaska cultures dating from 1000 BC-1000 AD. Projectile points and other stone implements are similar to those of the preceding Norton culture.
Istállóskö: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic cave site in the Bükk Mountains of northern Hungary. The lower Aurignacian assemblage with split-base bone points but few stone tools had a radiocarbon date of 42,350 bp, one of the oldest Aurignacian occupations in Europe. The upper layer is Aurignacian of c 31,000 bp with a bone flute, burins, endscrapers, and bone points.
javelin head: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A kind of large flint projectile point used during the Neolithic in the British Isles. Usually lozenge-shaped in outline with slightly convex curves on the leading edges. Finely made, and sometimes polished and ground on the large flat sides, presumably to reduce the weight and produce a thinner blade.
Jaywa: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A preceramic phase, 7100-5800 BC, in Ayacucho basin of central Andes, Peru. Nomadic groups of hunters and gatherers used a distinctive toolkit of stemmed and pentagonal projectile points.
Jebel Uweinat: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A mountainous region of the eastern Sahara, where Libya, Sudan, and Egypt meet. The many rock shelters had prehistoric occupation, with abundant rock art. The art is of particular interest for its representations of various creatures, including giraffe and ostrich, which are tethered. It was a focal point for Neolithic herders around 6200 BP.
Jerzmanowician: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Jermanovician
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An early Upper Palaeolithic industry of Poland characterized by foliated bifacial points, retouched blades, and denticulates. The type site is Nietoperzowa Cave at Jermanovice near Cracow in Poland.
Kalumpang: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic site in Sulawesi which, along with Minanga Sipakko, has produced late Neolithic assemblages of polished stone adzes, ground slate projectile points, and pottery. Some aspects of the artifacts are similar to Taiwanese Neolithic and Lapita wares of Oceania.
Kamikuroiwa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Jomon rock shelter on Shikoku, Japan with pottery radiocarbon-dated to the late 11th millennium BC, similar to that at Fukui and Sempukuji. It is associated with bifacial points rather than with microblades. Incised flat pebbles representing human females were also found -- the earliest portable art found in Japan. The 20 human and two dog burials in one of the upper layers are among the oldest Initial (Incipient) Jomon burials.
Kanem: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kanem-Bornu
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: African trading empire ruled by the Sef (Sayf) dynasty that controlled the area around Lake Chad from the 9th to the 19th century. Its territory at various times included what is now southern Chad, northern Cameroon, northeastern Nigeria, eastern Niger, and southern Libya. Kanem-Bornu was probably founded around the mid-9th century, and its first capital was at Njimi. Toward the end of the 11th century, Kanem-Bornu became an Islamic state. Because of its location, it served as a point of contact in trade between North Africa, the Nile Valley, and the sub-Sahara region.
Kastritsa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic cave site in northwest Greece with occupation beginning c 22,000-11,000 bp. Artifacts include backed blades, shouldered points, bone points, and decorated pebbles.
Kebarian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kebaran
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stone-tool culture in Kebara (Kebareh) Cave of Mount Carmel, Israel. It is from the early Levantine Epipalaeolithic (c 20,000-14,500 BP, after the local Upper Palaeolithic. The nomadic hunter-gatherers worked with wild cereals and the flint industry was characterized by bladelets and microliths modified to form backed and pointed pieces and by mortars and pestles.
Kenniff Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A sandstone rock shelter in south central Queensland, Australia, one of the oldest sites yet discovered in the continent and containing one of the longest and most complete technological sequences for any Australian site. The basal strata contain an industry of core and flake scrapers dated by radiocarbon to c 14,000-13,000 BC. These tools were later joined by small blades, microliths, delicate points, woodworking flakes, and (around 2400 BC) by backed blades. Stone tools from the base to the 3000 BC levels also included steep-edge flake scrapers and cores, including horsehoof cores. Between 3000-500 BC, there occurred an unusually wide range of Australian Small Tools, including Pirri points, geometric microliths, Bondi points, and Tula adze flakes, as well as grinding stones. Ochre pellets, some use-striated, were scattered through all levels. There is stenciled art going back 19,000 years. It was the first evidence of Pleistocene occupation in Australia, establishing the two-phase sequence in current use for the continent.
key attribute: CATEGORY: database design
DEFINITION: An attribute that provides unique record identifiers in a one" file and to which an attribute pointer can link from a "many" file."
Kongemose: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Mesolithic culture of southern Scandinavia centered on the type site lake settlement of Kongemosen in Zealand. It dates to the late Boreal and early Atlantic, c 5600-5000 bc, between the Maglemosian and Ertebolle. Artifacts include geometric art, large blades, axes, and bone points.
Koonalda: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Koonalda Cave
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large limestone cave site beneath the Nullarbor Plain, South Australia, with radiocarbon dates of c 20,000-13,000 BC. Parietal art in the form of 'finger' grooves on soft limestone, and scratches and engravings on harder rock have been dated by covering rock-fall to at least 18,000 BC. They cover several thousand square feet and it is possible that their significance lies in their placement at specific points in the cave.
Koptos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Qift, ancient Kebet, Qebtu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Town site in Upper Egypt just below Luxor, at the entrance to the Wadi Hammamat (the road to the Red Sea), existing since early dynastic times. It was important for nearby gold and quartzite mines in the Eastern Desert, worked during the 1st and 2nd dynasties, and as a starting point for expeditions to Punt. The town was associated with the god Min, whose temple ruins remain, and the goddess Isis, who, according to legend, found part of Osiris' body there. Destroyed in 292 AD by Diocletian, it later became a Christian community. This valley also served as the principal trade route between the Nile valley and the Red Sea.
Kostenki-Willendorf culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic culture of central Europe and the Russian plain dating to c 30,000-20,000 bp. This culture is based on assemblages containing backed blades, shouldered points, and Venus figurines among the art objects. It is generally equated with the Eastern Gravettian industry.
Krasnyj Yar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic site in south-central Siberia, occupied from around the Last Glacial Maximum of 25,000-14,000 bp. The artifacts include wedge-shaped microcores, microblades, points, and endscrapers.
Krems: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Krems-Hundssteig
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site on the Danube in northeast Austria, dating to around 35,200 bp. The Krems-Hundssteig locality has revealed a very rich Aurignacian-like assemblage in which numerous bladelets, endscrapers, retouched blades, and 'Krems' points were found. A female figurine of green serpentine was dated to 31,790 bp.
Krukowski microburin: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A tool backed like a La Mouillah point but the scar runs back onto the body of the bladelet.
Kudaro: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Two cave sites in the Greater Caucasus Mountains of Georgia with Acheulian layers associated with Middle Pleistocene vertebrates and bifaces, choppers, and sidescrapers. Some Middle Palaeolithic artifacts are associated with Late Pleistocene vertebrates and points and sidescrapers. There are also late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic remains.
L'Anse-Amour: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Burial site on southern Labrador's (Canada) coast with a skeleton dated to c 5000 BC. The grave goods include a walrus tusk, stone spear points, and antler harpoon head. It is a complex burial for the time and the oldest burial mound in North America.
Lagoa Santa caves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A system of caves in Minas Gerais, Brazil, occupied from the late Pleistocene, with human remains, stone tools, and remains of extinct mastodon and sloth. Dated to 15,300 bp is an industry of quartz flakes. The Cerca Grande complex of 10,000-8000 bp had small rock-crystal flakes, axes, bone projectile points, hammerstones, and a cemetery of 50 flexed inhumations. There are hundreds of rock paintings from the Planalto Tradition of 7000-3000 bp.
Lamoka culture: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: An inland site of the late Archaic period located in the Finger Lakes region of central New York dating c 2500-1800 BC. It is characterized by narrow-stemmed points of a type usually associated with coastal areas and by a well-developed industry in worked bone. Other traits include houses framed with upright poles, beveled adzes, atlatl weights, manos and metates, and fishing gear.
lancehead: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A large, flat missile point of stone, bone, ivory, or metal -- larger than an arrowhead and smaller than a spearhead. It is assumed to have armed a light lance or javelin and was mounted on a long shaft for hunting or war.
lanceolate: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Shaped like a lance head, referring to projectile points tapering to a point at the apex and sometimes at the base. The term is often applied to flaked stone blades of laurel-leaf form and is much like spearheads.
lancet: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A pointed two-edged surgical knife.
Larnian culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mesolithic culture, named after Larne, Ireland, and found only on sites close to coasts and estuaries in western Scotland and eastern Ireland. It is characterized by shell middens and the early toolkits include leaf-shaped points made on a flake, the oldest unambiguous implement in Ireland, and scrapers. Some are dated to 6000 BC. Later assemblages contain more flakes than blades and include tranchet axes and very small scrapers. . More recent work casts doubt on the antiquity of the people who were responsible for the Larnian industry; association with Neolithic remains suggests that they should be considered not as Mesolithic but rather as contemporary with the Neolithic farmers. The Larnian could then be interpreted as a specialized aspect of contemporary Neolithic culture. Lake and riverside finds, especially along the River Bann, show a comparable tradition. A single radioactive carbon date of 5725 +/- 110 BC from Toome Bay, north of Lough Neagh, for woodworking and flint has been cited in support of a Mesolithic phase in Ireland.
Late Horizon: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Upper Formative; Inca Period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of time in central Andean chronology, 1450-1533 AD, which corresponds to the Inca Empire's expansion from Cuzco. It is the most recent and briefest period of a chronological construction of Peruvian archaeology. The early date marks the point at which territorial expansion was virtually complete; the late date marks the passing of control to the Spanish under Pizarro. Archaeologists have come to distinguish the various peoples and civilizations by descriptive terms -- the Late Preceramic, the Initial (or Lower Formative) Period, the Early Horizon, the Early Intermediate Period, the Middle Horizon, the Late Intermediate Period, and the Late Horizon.
lateral section: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A cross section in which the cut is made perpendicular to the base line of the artifact drawing and the outline of the section is oriented like a profile view but in horizontal alignment with the points through which the cut was made
Lauicocha Caves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of caves of long occupation in the central Peruvian highlands, mainly summer hunting camps, the associated winter locus being the lowlands, during the Archaic. The earliest period of occupation was c 8000-6000 BC; this level is characterized by stemless triangular points and stemmed diamond-shaped points. A number of burials indicates a Dolichocephalic population. The willow-leaf points of Lauricocha II (6000-4000 BC) show strong similarities to points at Chivaterros, El Jobo, and Ayampitim and are associated with knives, scrapers, and other hide-working implements. Later levels contain small points and then ceramics.
Laurentian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lake Forest Late Archaic
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Important Late Archaic tradition in northern New York and Vermont and the upper St. Lawrence valley, c 4000-1500 BC. Characteristic artifacts are broad-bladed, notched projectile points; bifaces, scrapers, and polished-stone tools (celts, gouges, plummets, slate knives or points). The tradition has phases such as Brewerton, Vergennes, and Vosburg.
Lauricocha: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Area of several preceramic cave sites in the highlands of central Peru. The earliest level, dating c 8000-6000 BC, yielded the skeletons of people who hunted deer and guanaco with spears tipped with leaf-shaped points. The sites represent seasonal hunting camps. A second phase, dated c 6000-4000 BC, had better-made points of willow leaf shape. The second culture at Lauricocha was replaced by a third one with smaller leaf- and diamond-shaped points which lasted until 1500 or later; the latter part of this period overlaps with the earliest farming villages on the Peruvian coast, where points of Lauricocha type have been found. Fourth and fifth stages represent pottery-using cultures. Other caves in the area have engravings, some of which include motifs used by about 1000 BC on pottery at Kotosh. Occupations extend into the Initial Period.
Lazaret: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Acheulian cave site near Nice, France, with some evidence of hutlike structures and an assemblage dated to Riss III with pointed bifaces and choppers.
Le Lazaret: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lazaret
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site on the coast close to Nice, France, with deposits from before the last Interglacial, with Acheulian tools and interspersed beach deposits. Human remains of two children and one adult are known, and it has been claimed that large huts were constructed inside the cave. The assemblage is dated to Riss III and includes pointed bifaces and choppers.
Le Mas d'Azil: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Huge river tunnel and limestone grottoes in Ariège of the French Pyrenees with occupation from the Aurignacian to the Bronze Age. The Magdalenian level has portable art dated to the 12th millennium BC. The Azilian material, between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic, included perforated barbed points and painted pebbles. The site is rich in Palaeolithic remains.
Le Moustier: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave near Les Eyzies in the Dordogne region of France that is the type site of the Mousterian or Middle Palaeolithic. The type artifacts from the Mousterian consist of points and side scrapers, in addition to a few hand axes (especially heart- or triangular-shaped forms), and the secondary working is coarse. Upper Palaeolithic levels cover the Mousterian levels in both the classic shelter and the lower shelter. From the lower shelter came a Neanderthal skeleton of nearly mature age.
lead isotope analysis: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique based on the relative abundance of lead isotopes, which differ according to the origin of the lead, allowing scientists to pinpoint the source of a piece of lead once the ratios of the isotopes have been determined. A mass spectrometer is used on a small sample to determine the ratio of the isotopic concentrations, which are similar in different regions if the geological time scale is similar. The method can be used to identify sources of lead impurities in other metals as well as in glass and glaze.
leaf-shaped: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: foliated; foliate
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Of a tool, pointed at the ends and with convex sides, as on a willow leaf. The term is applied to an arrowhead, the blade of a slashing sword, or the flattened bow of a fibula and other tools which have been retouched on both faces to produce a flattish effect. Many Upper Paleolithic tools are named after leaves (Solutrean laurel leaf). Some Middle Paleolithic industries are characterized by the presence of bifaces, others by the presence of leaf-shaped objects. Mousterian industries producing leaf-shaped items in central and eastern Europe.
Leang Burung: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Rock shelter site in southwestern Sulawesi, Indonesia with deposits postdating Ulu Leang. Shelter I has produced a late Toalian assemblage with microliths, Maros points, and pottery dating to the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. However, Shelter 2 produced a much older stone tool assemblage, late Pleistocene, with possible early Australian and also Levalloisian technological affinities, dating back to c 30,000-17,000 BC.
Lehringen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Palaeolithic site near Bremen in north Germany (Lower Saxony), where organic muds revealed a pollen diagram of the last Interglacial. In these muds, a yew wood spear broken into several pieces was found. It passed between the ribs of the skeleton of an Elephant of Elephas antiquus type. The tip was finely shaved to a point and fire-hardened; the spear was evidently used for thrusting.
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.
leister: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A two-pronged forklike fish spear made of two bone or antler heads with barbs pointing inwards and backwards. They are recorded from Mesolithic and lakeside Neolithic settlements, as well as present-day use by the Eskimo, mainly for salmon.
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.
leveling: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: leveling
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: To establish the height above the site datum of a number of points (spot heights) which will either record the level of the surface of a feature or layer, or enable a contour survey to be constructed. It also means to find the heights of different points in (a piece of land) esp. with a surveyor's level.
Lindenmeier: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Folsom site in eastern Colorado with occupation c 11,000 BP, also with Archaic and Late Archaic components. It was a kill, butchering, and camp site and may have been a seasonal meeting and camping place for hunting groups. The Folsom is characterized by a distinct leaf-shaped projectile point, and a variety of scrapers, knives, and blades. It marked the first association in the Americas of man-made artifacts with the bones of long-extinct mammalian forms
Lindner Site, Nauwalabila: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Painted sandstone shelter in Arnhem Land, northern Australia, dating to 20,000 years ago. The lowest levels have Australian Core Tool and Scraper tradition artifacts of older than 18,000 bp. There are edge-ground tools dating c 14,000 bp, Australian Small Tool tradition points of about 6000 bp, and then adzes about 3500 bp.
Linear A: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A syllabic script created by the Minoans and used in Crete and on other Aegean islands of Greece during the Neopalatial (early palace) period, c 1700-1450 BC (also c 2000/1900-1400 BC). The script has never been deciphered. It was inscribed on clay tablets as administrative records, as well as on stone (religious) vases and bronze double axes. Sir Arthur Evans named the Linear A and B scripts such to distinguish them from the hieroglyphic which preceded them; Linear A is the earlier of the two. Each is a syllabary, and was written with a sharp point on clay tablets. Linear A is of the Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan I. It is in some ways similar to Linear B and has pictograms reduced to formal outline patterns. Linear A tablets have been found in the palaces of Crete itself and also on the Cycladic islands of Melos, Keos, Kythera, Naxos and Thera.
Little Salt Spring: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric site in Florida with hearths, a boomerang, projectile point, and shell of extinct giant land tortoise from the Palaeoindian period (12,000-8500 BP). There was an Archaic occupation (6800-5200 BP) with burials of 1000 individuals preserved in peat.
Llano: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Llano tradition
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The earliest Palaeoindian Big Game Hunting culture, from the plains of New Mexico, 10,000-9000 BC. Best-known is the type site of Blackwater Draw; other sites were located in what was once boggy lakeshore. Its chief diagnostic trait is the presence of Clovis materials, especially the fluted point, in association with mammoth remains. Evidence of the culture exists throughout North America: as far south as Iztapan, Mexico, as far north as Worland, Wyoming, and possibly as far east as Debert, Nova Scotia. The large plateau of Llano Estacado covered eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle.
lobate: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of stem that describes points and knives with curved or rounded ears.
lobbed: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A term used to describe the base portion of a point or blade that is eared. The ears are rounded and are formed by the meeting of two circles creating a lobbed effect. An object with a oval shaped base or stem.
lomas: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: Patches of vegetation outside of valleys that were watered at that season by fogs. The Peruvian coast was covered with areas of this type of vegetation which could live off the moisture from the fog in the air. Lomas were created as a result of climatic shift at end of Pleistocene. Lomas culture was developed in these areas by hunters who turned to exploitation of this vegetation as their economic basis. They set up seasonally occupied camps during the winter months. The lomas provided wild seeds, tubers, and large snails; deer, camelids (probably guanaco), owls, and foxes were hunted. Milling stones, manos, mortars, pestles, and projectile points frequently occur in the assemblages. Around 2500 BC, a further climatic change made much of the lomas dry up, and the area became a desert. Lomas sites were abandoned in favor of permanent settlement at the littoral zone along the coast, where maritime resources were exploited. The deposits are not thick enough to show stratification, but they have been arranged in chronological order by comparing the implement types and noting their distribution within the shrinking patches of vegetation.
London: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Roman Londinium
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important port and capital town of Roman Britain by about 100 AD, probably replacing the originally intended capital at Clochester. The site, on a previously unoccupied gravel plateau on the north side of the River Thames, was probably chosen as the lowest crossing point at the time of the Roman invasion in 43 AD. Use began as a supply depot and a trading center as it was a convenient starting point for the growing network of Roman roads. Burnt and ravaged by Boudicca in 60-61, the town soon revived, and capital status brought a large forum (Leadenhall Market), governor's palace (Canon Street), and a legionary fort (area of London Wall). Although damaged by fire again in c 125-130, the settlement continued to consolidate its position, and a wall was added to protect it between 183-217. Continuous occupation since the Roman period has prevented much extensive excavation. The Museum of London holds marble heads of Mithras, Serapis, and Minerva from the Mithraeum and the British Museum holds the Tomb of Julius Alpinus Classicianus, procurator of Britain after Boudicca's revolt. A section of wall may be seen in Trinity Place near the Tower of London, and the Mithraeum has been reconstructed to the west of its original site, in front of Temple Court, Queen Victoria Street.
Lupemban: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lupembian
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A stone industry of the Lower Palaeolithic of west-central Africa, developed from a Sangoan predecessor and characterized by tools appropriate for rough woodwork. Lupemban is found in northern Angola and southern Zaire and an important dated site is at Kalambo Falls on the Zambia/Tanzania border. In contrast with the Sangoan, Lupermban assemblages are marked by the fine quality of their bifacial stoneworking technique on elongated double-ended points, large sidescrapers, and thick core-axes. The industry spans from before 30,000 BC until c15,000 BC.
Lupembian / Lupemban: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stone industry of the Lower Palaeolithic of west-central Africa, developed from a Sangoan predecessor and characterized by tools appropriate for rough woodwork. Lupemban is found in northern Angola and southern Zaire and an important dated site is at Kalambo Falls on the Zambia/Tanzania border. In contrast with the Sangoan, Lupermban assemblages are marked by the fine quality of their bifacial stoneworking technique on elongated double-ended points, large sidescrapers, and thick core-axes. The industry spans from before 30,000 BC until c15,000 BC.
Lyell, Sir Charles (1797-1875): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Scottish geologist largely responsible for the general acceptance of the view that all features of the Earth's surface are produced by physical, chemical, and biological processes over long periods of geological time (uniformitarianism). Lyell's achievements laid the foundations for evolutionary biology as well as for an understanding of the Earth's development. His work had a bearing on the development of archaeology at two points. His Principles of Geology" (1830-1833) established the view that the earth had been in existence for very much longer than the 6000 years allowed by the biblical chronology and laid open the way for the later acceptance of the antiquity of man. In 1859 publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species" gave new impetus to Lyell's work. Lyell's "The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man" (1863) tentatively accepted evolution by natural selection."
Magdalenian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Age of the Reindeer
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The final major European culture of the Upper Paleolithic period, from about 15,000-10,000 years ago; characterized by composite or specialized tools, tailored clothing, and especially geometric and representational cave art (e.g. Altamira) and for beautiful decorative work in bone and ivory (mobiliary art). The people were chiefly fishermen and reindeer hunters; they were the first known people to have used a spear thrower (of reindeer bone and antler) to increase the range, strength, and accuracy. Magdalenian stone tools include small geometrically shaped implements (e.g., triangles, semilunar blades) probably set into bone or antler handles for use, burins (a sort of chisel), scrapers, borers, backed bladelets, and shouldered and leaf-shaped projectile points. Bone was used extensively to make wedges, adzes, hammers, spearheads with link shafts, barbed points and harpoons, eyed needles, jewelry, and hooked rods probably used as spear throwers. They killed animals with spears, snares, and traps and lived in caves, rock shelters, or substantial dwellings in winter and in tents in summer. The name is derived from La Madeleine or Magdalene, the type site in the Dordogne of southwest France. Its center of origin was southwest France and the adjacent parts of Spain, but elements characteristic of the later stages are represented in Britain (Creswell Crags), and eastwards to southwest Germany and Poland. The Magdalenian culture, like that of earlier Upper Palaeolithic communities, was adapted to the cold conditions of the last (Würm) glaciation. The Magdalenian has been divided into six phases; it followed the Solutrean industry and was succeeded by the simplified Azilian. Magdalenian culture disappeared as the cool, near-glacial climate warmed at the end of the Fourth (Würm) Glacial Period (c 10,000 BC), and herd animals became scarce.
Magellan periods: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Magellan complex
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: A chronological sequence covering 8000 BC-1000 AD constructed on the basis of assemblages from Fell's Cave and the Palli Aike Cave in Patagonia, South America. The sequence is divided into five phases, describing a series of hunting and marine adaptations. The earliest assemblage (Magellan I) contains fishtail projectile points, signifying Paleoindian activity. Horse and sloth bones and the remains of three partly cremated Dolichocephalic humans, found in association with these points, have produced a single radiocarbon date of c 8700 BC. A shift to willow-leaf points occurred in Magellan II c 8000-4000 BC, which coincides with the disappearance of Pleistocene megafauna and widespread climatic change. Magellan IV-V are ill-defined but represent a continuing hunting strategy blending into a period of ceramic use.
Maglemosian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Maglemosan
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The first Mesolithic culture of the north European plain, found in Scandinavia, the northern Balkans, northern Scotland, and northern England, and lasting from c 9000/8000-5000 BC. The way of life was adapted to a forest and river/lakeside environment. Much has been preserved in waterlogged deposits. Thus more is known about the Maglemosian industry than about other tool industries of the same period. The tool kit included microliths, woodworking tools such as chipped axes and adzes, picks, barbed points, spearheads of bone or antler, and fishing gear. Wooden bows, paddles, and dugout canoes have been found, and the dog was already domesticated. The Maglemosian industry was named after the bog (magle mose, big bog in Danish) at Mullerup, Denmark, where evidence of the industry was first recognized. The Maglemosian industry was also highly artistic, with decorative designs on tools and decorative objects, such as pendants and amulets.
magnetic surveying: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
Magosian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stone industry found in eastern and southern Africa, dated to c 10,000-6000 BC. The diagnostic tools include small points, microliths, and small blades, as well as Middle Stone Age artifacts. An advanced Levallois technique was employed for the production of flakes for the manufacture of other tools, together with a punch technique for the production of microlithic artifacts. Projectile points were produced by pressure flaking. The culture may have been transitional between the Middle and Later Stone Ages. The type site is Magosi in Uganda. Other sites in central and southern Africa that are dated to the Pleistocene epoch (1,600,000-10,000 years ago) are often considered to represent the same material culture and hunting-and-gathering adaptation.
Majninskaya: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic site on the Uj River near its confluence with the Yenisei in Siberia. The occupations dated from c 19,000-9000 bp. Artifacts include wedge-shaped microcores, sidescrapers, endscrapers, bone points, and an anthropomorphous figurine.
Makarovo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Four Upper Palaeolithic sites on the Lena River in south-central Siberia. Makarovo II dates between c 11,400-11,950 bp and contains microblades. Makarovo III's assemblage includes sidescrapers, endscrapers, and choppers. Makarovo IV has points, sidescrapers, and endscrapers believed to predate the Last Glacial Maximum.
Mari: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Tell Hariri
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city and kingdom of Mesopotamia, on the right bank of the Euphrates near the Syrian-Iraqi border. It was the chief city of the middle Euphrates until its destruction by Hammurabi c 1759 BC. It was founded in the early 3rd millennium BC and was occupied until the late 1st millennium BC. Major temple and palace complexes and major archives belong to the third quarter of the 3rd millennium and to the early 2nd millennium. The Great Palace was repeatedly enlarged during its 400-year period of use; during the reign of Zimri-Lim, its last king, it had 300 rooms and its archives contain about 25,000 cuneiform tablets informative about international politics of the period and the administrative and economic organization of the kingdom. A room near the archive has been interpreted as a school -- the only one known from Mesopotamia. The Palace is famous also for its mural decorations: both representational pictures and geometric designs were painted directly on a thin layer of mud plaster representing a new and impressive school of decoration. Among the important Early Dynastic buildings are six temples dedicated to Ishtar, goddess of love. Mari stood on the Euphrates River at a point where three trade routes met; tin, copper, silver, lapis lazuli, timber, and textiles were traded.
Marpole culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An archaeological complex in Canada, dating c 500 BC-1500 AD; the type site is at the mouth of the Fraser River in British Columbia. Its distinctive traits include flaked-stone points, microblades, ground-slate points and fish knives, and disc beads of shell and shale. Antler was used for barbed point and harpoon making. There were midden burials, some with plentiful grave goods. It probably evolved from the Locarno Beach culture.
mataa: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Large-stemmed obsidian spearpoint that was shaped and hafted by inhabitants of Easter Island. It is of the period of internal wars, 18th-19th centuries AD.
Mauern: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The Weinberg caves at Mauern in Bavaria, southern Germany, which have revealed two Mousterian levels, the upper one with many leaf points. Above these is an Upper Palaeolithic level.
McKean Complex: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Middle Plains Archaic complex dating to c 5000-3000 BC and occupying parts of the northwestern Plains of North America. Its type site is in northeast Wyoming and has a McKean projectile point -- a stemmed, lanceolate form.
Mecca: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mekka, Makkah, ancient Bakkah, Macoraba
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A caravan town on the route from southern Arabia to Palestine, the most holy city of Islam; it was the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, and is a religious center to which Muslims attempt a pilgrimage, or hajj, during their lifetime. Located in the Sirat Mountains in western Saudi Arabia, the focal point of the pilgrimage is the sanctuary which contains the Ka'bah which, according to Islamic tradition, Abraham and Ishmael built as the house of God. The Ka'bah was built before the advent of Islam in the 7th century and has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. Now entirely of stone, it was embellished (according to Mas'udi) with mosaic brought from a church at San'a in Yemen. The town was located about midway between Ma'rib in the south and Petra in the north, and it gradually developed by Roman and Byzantine times into an important trade and religious center. The holy book of Islam, the Qur'an, was revealed to the Prophet partly on Mount Arafat, just outside Mecca.
Medicine Lodge Creek: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A deeply stratified site located in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, with a date range of c 8000 BC to historic times. Evidence of a diversified subsistence base of small game hunting and gathering occurs at a time when the Big Game Hunting Tradition was still widely practiced in the Great Plains. Manos, metates, and remains of fish, gopher, and rabbit were found at levels dated from 7500-6500 BC. Lanceolate projectile points, similar to those found at Mummy Cave, also fall within this date range, but stemmed points typical of the Archaic fall slightly later at c 6300 BC.
melting: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The point at which a metal liquefies. This point must be reached if a metal object is to be cast. In antiquity, gold, silver, copper, and lead were all melted and cast, but the melting and casting of iron was not achieved until the medieval period. Melting points are as follows: tin, 232? C; lead, 327? C; silver, 960? C; gold, 1063? C; copper, 1,083? C; iron 1,525? C.
Memphis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Men-nefer
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of Egypt in the Archaic Period and Old Kingdom (c 2575-c. 2130 BC), and thereafter one of the most important cities of the Near East. Located in Lower Egypt, it stood near the key point where the Nile begins to divide its waters at the head of the delta, 15 miles south of Cairo. The only surviving remains are the cemeteries west of the city, most notably the pyramids and Great Sphinx of Giza. The main pyramid fields are: Abu Ruwaysh, Giza, Zawayet el-Aryan, Abu Sir, Saqqarah (Saqqara), and Dahshur. It is said to have been founded by the 1st Dynasty ruler Menes c 2925 BC and was the seat of the creator god Ptah. During the New Kingdom (1539-1075), Memphis probably functioned as the second, or northern, capital of Egypt. Despite the rise of the god Amon of Thebes, Ptah remained one of the principal gods of the pantheon. The Great Temple was added to or rebuilt by virtually every king of the 18th dynasty. Chapels were constructed by Thutmose I and Thutmose IV and by Amenhotep III. Amenhotep III's son, the religious reformer Akhenaton, built a temple to his god, Aton, in Memphis. A number of handsome private tombs dating from this period in the Memphite necropolis testify to the existence of a sizable court. In 332 BC, Alexander the Great used Memphis as his headquarters while making plans for his new city of Alexandria. From the Fifth Dynasty onwards there was a very marked reduction in the size of the royal tombs, together with the use of materials and techniques which involved a lesser expenditure of effort and resources in their construction. By the First Intermediate period, the construction of monumental tombs seems to have stopped.
Merenptah (d. 1204 BC?): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Meneptah, Merenptah
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The 13th son of his long-lived father, Ramesses II, Merneptah was nearing 60 years of age at his accession in about 1213. Because of the extraordinary length of the reign of Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC), at least twelve of his sons died before him, including Khaemwaset, who was for several years the appointed heir. Early in Merneptah's reign, his troops had to suppress a revolt in Palestine by the cities of Ashqelon, Gezer, and Yenoam. Merneptah's greatest challenge, however, came from the Libyans who were encroaching on Egyptian lands. About 1209, Merneptah learned that some Sea Peoples were roving the Middle East, had joined and armed the Libyans, and with them were conspiring to attack Memphis and Heliopolis. He is responsible for the great victory over the Libyans and Sea Peoples, in which they lost nearly 9,400 men. Merneptah ordered the carving of four great commemorative texts in celebration. One of these, the famous Israel Stela refers to the suppression of the revolt in Palestine. It contains the earliest-known reference to Israel, which Merneptah counted among the peoples that he defeated. Hebrew scholars suggest that the circumstances agree approximately with the period noted in biblical books from late Exodus to Judges. A fragmentary stela from the Sudan also suggests that the king quelled a rebellion in Lower Nubia, probably after his Palestinian exploits.
Michelsberg: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Middle Neolithic culture of Belgium, northeastern France, the Rhineland and parts of Switzerland from c 4500-4000 BC. It occupies a frontier zone on the borders of the Danubian culture, TRB culture, and western Neolithic complex, and shares traits with all three. The type site is a hilltop enclosure in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. There are many regional subgroups. The Belgian one has leaf-shaped arrowheads, antler combs, flint mines, and enclosures similar in construction to causewayed camps, and may have had links with the Windmill Hill culture of Britain. In the Rhineland and Low Countries, the culture was closely related to Funnel-Necked Beaker Culture and a succession to the Röessen Culture. Pottery forms include pointed- and round-based vessels with flaring rims and flat pottery disks (plats à pain) which were probably lids. One of innovations was use of deep mines for flint (Spiennes in Belgium, Rijckholt in Netherlands) where axes were made. Contacts by the Michelsberg with late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers north of the loess zone gave rise to semiagricultural communities, as evidenced by relics from about 4000 BC found in the Netherlands delta at Swifterbant in Flevoland and Hazendonkborn and Bergschenhoekborn in Zuid-Holland.
Micoquian: CATEGORY: artifact; culture
DEFINITION: Final Acheulian phase defined on the basis of assemblages from La Micoque, near Les Eyzies, France. Sites are in central Europe, including some in the former Soviet Union. The characteristic artifact is a pointed-pyriform (pear-shaped) or lanceolate (tapering) biface with a well-made tip.
microburin: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: microburin technique
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A microlith produced by notching and snapping a blade; a small piece of stone snapped off of a microlith that is a byproduct of the manufacture of microliths. A blade is notched and then snapped off where the chipping has narrowed and weakened it. One piece becomes a microlithic tool, while the residue (the microburin) still shows traces of the original notch and fracture. Certain trapeze-shaped microliths were made from the central part of a double-notched blade, in which case both ends have the appearance of microburins. This procedure allowed the maker to obtain a strong head with a sharp point by breaking up flint blades after making a notch in them -- a practice widespread in Mesolithic as means of manufacturing arrowheads. The name originates from the erroneous belief that these pieces were the same as burins.
microlith: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pigmy stone
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Any of various very small stone tools varying in size from 1-5 cm -- mainly thin blade or blade fragments with sharp cutting edges, usually geometric in shape and set into a wooden handle or shaft or the tip of a bone or antler as an arrow point. They were shaped by abrupt retouch into various shapes like triangles and crescents. Microliths were produced during the Later Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic and were either struck as blades from very small cores or were made from fractured blades using the microburin technique. They are characteristic, for example, of Azilian culture of the Mesolithic. Microliths represent both a versatile and an economic use of raw material: just as blades yield more cutting edge than flakes per unit weight of raw material, so bladelets improve yet further this advantage, by a factor of something over 100 compared to core tools.
Middle Stone Age: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The second part of the Stone Age in sub-Saharan Africa, dating from c 150,000-30,000 years ago and roughly equivalent to the Middle Palaeolithic elsewhere in the Old World. Assemblages are characterized by flakes made by preparing the core; there were many shapes and sizes of these artifacts. The characteristic tools are made on flakes produced by a developed Levalloisian technique, including slender unifacial and bifacial lances or spear points for stabbing or throwing. In the final stages of the Middle Stone Age, known as the South African Magosian, microlithic elements appear. Middle Stone Age assemblages are associated with anatomically modern Homo sapiens in southern Africa. People continued to live in open camps, while rock overhangs also were used for shelter. Middle Stone Age bands hunted medium-size and large prey. Sometimes they collected tortoises and ostrich eggs in large quantities, as well as seabirds and marine mammals that could be found along the shore. The rich archaeological deposits of Klasies River Mouth Cave preserve the earliest evidence in the world for the use of shellfish as a food source.
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.
midline: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In lithics, an imaginary line extending along the center of a projectile from the distal tip to the midpoint of the basal edge.
milestone: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Roman road markers -- cylindrical blocks of stone usually about 6 ft (1.8 m) high -- recording the distance from a central point within the province or a local center. These were placed along all principal roads, and instances are found from about 250 BC onwards. The stone was typically inscribed to give the distance in (Roman) miles to the nearest major town, and commonly a date of installation, expressed in terms of Republican magistracies, or the years of an Emperor's reign. They often bore the title of the emperor or consults under whose direction the road was laid out or repaired.
millefiore: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: millefiori
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of multicolored glass and the technique which creates it -- literally meaning 'a thousand flowers'. One millefiore method is to take a cane of glass, encase it with several layers of glass of different colors, and then heat the whole and roll it on a corrugated surface, thus compressing the colors at certain points and producing a rod with a flowerlike section. Small slices can be cut off this rod and inlaid into the object to be decorated. Another method is to lay thin glass rods of different colors into a pattern, fuse them together, draw them out, and cut in slices in the same way. The effect is mosaic. The technique was developed by Anglo-Saxon glass- and metal-workers. Some of the finest examples of the millefiore technique can be seen adorning the Sutton Hoo discoveries -- the brilliant reds and blues on the purse lid and shoulder clasps.
Miriwun: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter in the Ord River valley, Kimberley, Western Australia, now inundated by the Argyle Dam and submerged by Lake Argyle. Occupation deposits date from 16,000 BC. Artifacts from t he early phase include adze flakes, small denticulated flakes, thick notched flakes, pebble tools, irregular blade cores, and amorphous cores. Late phase tools, c 1000 BC, included unifacial and bifacial points, many denticulated, with the earlier tool types continued alongside.
mitochondrial DNA: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
Mlu Prei: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Prehistoric sites in north-central Cambodia, including O Yak, O Pie Can, and O Nari, occupied in the transition between the Neolithic to bronze and then iron. There were polished stone adzes, flaked sidescrapers, and bone projectile points during the Neolithic. Bronze items and clay crucibles followed and then the iron axes and other artifacts.
moa: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: Any of several extinct, ostrichlike flightless birds native to New Zealand and constituting the order Dinornithiformes. Moas (a Polynesian term) ranged in size from a turkey to an ostrich. Moa-hunting was once an economic mainstay of the Archaic Maoris, even though large concentrations only occurred in certain regions, especially east coastal South Island. Early Polynesian peoples hunted moas for food; they made spear points, hooks, and ornaments from their bones, and water carriers from their eggs. Although the larger moas probably had become extinct by the end of the 17th century, a few smaller species may have survived into the 19th.
Mogollon: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A prehistoric civilization that existed from before 500 BC to approximately 1400 AD in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico in the Mogollon Highlands. Its roots lie in the Cochise version of the Desert Culture in this area, but the Mogollon folk were settled agriculturists who lived in villages of pit houses; they were also strongly influenced by the Anasazi and Hohokam. Evidence of maize and bean horticulture found at Bat Cave dates to earlier than 2000 BC, but unequivocally characteristic traits, such as plain brown pottery, do not appear until 300 BC. Although the tradition was agriculturally based, hunting and gathering continued to play some part in subsistence activities. Before c 1000 AD, typical communities were small villages of pit houses, located in easily defensible positions such as high mesas. Larger villages often included a communal assembly building (possibly early kiva) and sometimes fortifications. From c 1000 AD, the Mogollon people came under the influence of their northern neighbors, the Anasazi, and began to build pueblos. To this late period belongs some of the finest pottery of the American southwest, Mimbres ware, painted with stylized black animals on a white background. The culture is chronologically divided on the basis of architectural and pottery changes (Pine Lawn period, about 200 BC-AD 500; Georgetown period, 500-700; San Francisco period, 700-900; Three Circle period, 900-1050; and Mimbres period, 1050-1200). Unlike the Anasazi culture, the Mogollon culture did not survive as a recognizable group of modern Native Americans. Remnants of the Mogollon may have merged with Anasazi peoples to become what is known as the Western Pueblo people. The tradition has a number of regional variants: Mimbres, Pine Lawn, Upper Little Colorado, Forestdale, and Point of Pines.
mold: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mould
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A matrix for casting metal. Molten metal poured into a concavity will solidify into a corresponding shape. The concavity has only to be given the shape of the required artifact. Such molds can be made of stone, pottery, or metal with a melting point higher than that of the alloy being cast. Molds were also used for making figurines and relief-decorated pottery. The simplest type of mold is a one-piece or open one, from which the casting emerges with one flat face, requiring further hammering to give it a symmetrical form. Two-piece molds allowed bifacial tools and weapons to be cast -- a third piece, or core, being added if a socket was required. These technical advances had been made before the end of the Early Bronze Age. Multi-piece molds were used in Shang China. Molds were used to produce the elaborate asymmetrical vessels of the Mochica and Chimú styles. The earliest molds for casting metal were made of stone. During the Late Bronze Age, piece molds began to be formed of clay.
Molodova culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic culture of the western Ukraine, found in the 5th level of Moldova. The early phase, c 30-25,000 bp, has burins, large retouched blades, and endscrapers; later phases, c 23-12,000 bp, also had backed blades and points.
Moore, Clarence Bloomfield (1852-1936): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American archaeologist considered one of the forefathers of Americanist archaeology. He worked on the southeastern coast of North America with major contributions at Moundville, Alabama, and Poverty Point, Louisiana.
mortuary priest: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: In ancient Egypt, a person or persons appointed to bring daily funerary offerings to a tomb; known as the 'servant of the ka'. An endowment of lands and estates during the life or after the death of the deceased provided the offerings, which then reverted to the priests.
Mousterian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mousterian industry
CATEGORY: culture; chronology; artifact
DEFINITION: A Middle Paleolithic culture that is defined by the development of a wide variety of specialized tools made with prepared-core knapping techniques, such as spear points. It is named for the first such artifacts recovered from the lower rock shelter at Le Moustier, Dordogne, France. Stone tools, scrapers, and points found in the cave came to be recognized as the flint industry present throughout Europe during first half of last glaciation (Würm) and associated with Neanderthal. The earliest Mousterian goes back to the Riss glaciation, but most of it comes into the late middle Würm glaciation, giving a total lifespan from 180,000 BC until c 30,000 BP. Flintwork of Mousterian type (with racloirs, triangular points made on flakes, and -- in some variants -- well-made handaxes) has been found over most of the unglaciated parts of Eurasia, as well as in the Near East and North Africa (in the latter two areas, it constitutes the Middle Palaeolithic). Three major regional variants have been identified -- West, East, and Levalloiso-Mousterian, each with sub-groups. In certain industries, called Levalloiso-Mousterian, the tools were made on flakes produced by the Levallois technique. It was a progressive stage in the manufacture of stone tools. Mousterian peoples mainly lived in cave mouths and rock shelters.
Muge: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Mesolithic shell mounds (concheiros) in Portugal, dated between 7350-5150 bp (Atlantic period). There was a microlithic industry, quartzite pebbles and grindstones, and bone points and axes of red deer antlers. There are more than 230 burials -- individuals with at least some Cro-Magnon characteristics, called Cro-Magnoids. It is an important European Mesolithic funerary assemblage.
Mullerup: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The type site in Denmark for the Maglemosian tool culture of northern Europe, situated in the Magle Mose (or big bog") in Zealand. The Maglemosian in one of the Mesolithic cultures characterized by stone microliths (tiny stone blades edges and points) used as arrowheads or set into the cutting edges of mattocks axes and adzes and many bone and wood tools are known. It belongs to the early post-glacial period or Boreal time c 9000-5000 BC."
multi-dimensional scaling: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: MDSCAL, multidimensional scaling
CATEGORY: technique; measure
DEFINITION: A multivariate statistical technique which aims to develop spatial structure from numerical data by estimating the differences and similarities between analytical units. Points or items are distributed in a hyperspace, whose dimensions are a large number of variables, and can be similarly distributed in a space of fewer dimensions. The points, originally randomly distributed, are moved about in the new space until the distances between points are similar in proportion to those between points in the original hyperspace. For example, a group of artifacts, about which a large number of characteristics and measurements have been recorded, can be represented by a two-dimensional plot. The reverse is also possible: distributions in a space of few dimensions can be 'unfolded' into space of many more dimensions. I.e. a statistical technique that distorts multidimensional distances/dissimilarities so that they can be portrayed on a two-dimensional map.
Mycenaeans: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mycenaean
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Inhabitants of Mycenae, the civilization of late Bronze Age Greece, set in the Argolid. Their name for themselves was Achaeans, and their achievements were remembered in the legends of the classical Greeks. Their forebears probably arrived in Greece around 2000 BC, bringing Minyan ware and an Indo-European language with them. Mycenaean civilization arose in the 16th century BC by the sudden influx of many features of material culture from the Minoans. Later traditions speak of the arrival of new rulers from the east. By c 1450 BC, the Mycenaeans were powerful enough to take over both Knossos and the profitable trade across the east Mediterranean, especially in Cypriote copper. Trade was extended also to the central Mediterranean and continental Europe, where Baltic amber was one of the commodities sought. The peak of their power lasted only a century and a half until natural and unnatural disaster struck. The Trojan War at the end of the 13th century points to unrest east of the Aegean. There is evidence of increasing depopulation of southern Greece about the same time, paving the way for invasion by the Dorians. At home, the Mycenaeans dwelt in strongly walled citadels containing palaces of the megaron type, exemplified at Mycenae, Tiryns, Thebes, and Pylos. To these were added the more Minoan features -- frescoes, painted pottery, skillfully carved seals, artistic metalwork, clay tablets, etc. Their writing, Linear B, was an adaptation of the Minoan script, presumably first made by the mainlanders who had occupied Knossos, for the writing of their own, Greek, language. (Linear B was deciphered by Michael Ventris.) The Mycenaeans contributed greatly to the economy and technology of Late Bronze Age Europe, and to the population of the east Mediterranean coasts after the Egyptian defeat of the Peoples of the Sea, and they also left a legacy in their language and literature to their descendants in Greece. The civilization collapsed in c 1200 BC.
Nachikufan: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Backed microlith industries of northern Zambia of the Later Stone Age, named after Nachikufu Cave. The complex, once regarded as a single local tradition (Nachikufan Industrial Complex), was of long duration and divided into three successive phases. The first phase, Nachikufan I, is now seen as a widespread industry, characterized by the presence of large numbers of small pointed backed bladelets, of early date; it extends back as early as c 20,000 BP at such sites as Kalemba and Leopard's Hill, till 12,000 BP. There were also various scrapers and examples of bored stones. The later phases are more restricted geographically and form part of a general continuum of variation among the backed-microlith industries of south-central Africa during the last 7-8 millennia BC.
Nal: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cultural group named after the site of Sohr Damb (Red Mound), near the village of Nal in central Baluchistan, Pakistan. It is related to the Kulli culture further south and is dated to the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. Both settlements are associated with water-control systems which allowed exploitation of alluvial plains for agriculture. The Chalcolithic population used copper for many tools and weapons, as well as ground stone. They made beads from agate and perhaps also lapis lazuli. The fine buff pottery, some wheelmade, is decorated with geometric patterns in black paint; red, blue, green, and yellow pigments were often applied after firing. Some traits in the pottery, a glazed steatite seal and many faience beads point to contact with the Indus Civilization. Many burials were excavated on the type site, belonging to a period later than the settlement. The rite employed was fractional burial, the graves containing fragmentary skeletons together with quantities of distinctive pottery.
Narva: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Narva culture
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A Neolithic culture and its type site in the eastern Baltic coast region (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania; parts of Poland, Belarus) and dated to the 4th-3rd millennium BC. Similar in type to the ancestral Kunda culture, the Narva economy was based on hunting and fishing, with more tools of bone and antler than stone. Simple pointed-based pottery (with straight or S-profiles) and oval bowls was made. Important sites are Osa, Sarnate, Sventoji, and Narva-town.
Nasca lines: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: geoglyphs; Nazca lines
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: In the Peruvian desert or Nasca region of the southern coast, geometric and geomorphic patterns created by the removal of surface stones to reveal the pale earth beneath. The lines were made by clearing the surface of small red/brown stones and exposing the lighter-colored soil underneath. The straight lines radiate to points in small hills and suggest a ceremonial function. The straight lines date to the Early Intermediate as well as to later periods. Maria Reiche, a researcher, believes that the figures represent constellations and the straight lines have astronomical significance. Others believe the lines pointed toward sacred places. The Nasca lines are virtually indecipherable from ground level, but are plainly visible from the air. The lines have been preserved by the extreme dryness of the climate of the region.
Naukratis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kom Gi'eif, Naucratis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Greek town in the Nile River delta, on the Canopic (western) branch of the river. An emporion (trading station") with exclusive trading rights in Egypt Naukratis was the center of cultural relations and trade between Greece and Egypt in the pre-Hellenistic period. It was established by Milesians in the 7th century BC and flourished throughout the classical period. There was a shared administrative building called the Helleneion. It declined after Alexander's conquest of Egypt and the foundation of Alexandria (332 BC). There is evidence for the minting of silver and bronze coins and for the existence of a new building program under the early Ptolemies. By Roman imperial times the site may have been abandoned. Dedications to deities and Greek pottery have thrown light on the early history of the Greek alphabet and the commercial activity of various Greek states especially in the 6th century BC. It was mentioned by Herodotus as the chief point of contact between Egypt and Greece until Hellenistic period and rise of Alexandria."
Nderit ware: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Gumban A
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: First discovered at Stable's Drift on the Nderit River, south of Lake Nakuru in the central Rift Valley of Kenya, Nderit ware is a widespread variety of pottery which may predate the florescence of the Pastoral Neolithic in the area. It is one of several distinct pottery wares associated with the Pastoral Neolithic in Kenya and northern Tanzania. It is characterized by finely executed, wedge-shaped decoration, apparently made by means of repeated impressions of a pointed object such as obsidian; it is also often deeply scored on the inside surface of the vessel. In northern Kenya, the pottery occurs at least as early as the 3rd millennium BC. Further to the south, Nderit ware only occurs with other pottery traditions.
Neanderthal man: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Neandertal, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Neanderthals
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An early form of Homo sapiens that inhabited much of Europe and the Mediterranean area during the late Pleistocene Epoch, about 100,000 to 35,000 years ago. Neanderthal remains have also been found in the Middle East, North Africa, and western Central Asia. This type of fossil human that is a subspecies of Homo sapiens and is distinguished by a low broad braincase, continuous arched brow ridges, projecting occipital region, short limbs, and large joints; his brain was as large as modern man's. His flintwork, which in North Africa and Eurasia was of Middle Palaeolithic (Mousterian) type, was technically more advanced than anything which had gone before (scrapers and points), and the careful burial of dead with funerary offerings provides the oldest surviving evidence for religious beliefs. Neanderthals mainly lived in caves. They used fire and hunted small and medium-sized animals (e.g. goats, deer) and scavenged from the kills of large carnivores. The oldest skeletal remains belong to the Riss-Würm interglacial period, but Neanderthal man persisted through the earlier stage of the succeeding Würm glaciation until he was replaced by modern man. This replacement probably took place between 40,000-35,000 BC, but the scarcity of skeletal evidence from the period makes it impossible to give a more precise date. The manner of this replacement is also in doubt. Neanderthal man is sometimes classified as a distinct species of the genus Homo, but has also been considered as falling within the same species as Homo sapiens, whose ancestor he may have been. The species is named after its type area in Neanderthal, a valley near Düsseldorf in Germany, where skeletal remains of this type of human were first found in 1856.
nearest-neighbor analysis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: nearest-neighbor statistic
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of analyzing the extent to which two-dimensionally located points are randomly distributed; a measure of the relationship between a cluster of points in a pattern based on the expected value and the observed value. The statistic equals observed value divided by expected value. This method of analyzing the degree of dispersion in a distribution pattern was first developed by plant ecologists studying the concentration of certain species. A nearest-neighbor index (usually denoted by the symbol R), is calculated from the ratio of the average observed distance from each point in the pattern to its nearest neighbor, to the average distance expected if the pattern were randomly distributed, which depends solely on the density of the pattern being studied. The index R varies from 0.00 for a totally clustered pattern through 1.00 for a random distribution to a maximum of 2.15 for a completely regularly spaced pattern. The index is influenced by the size of the study area chosen; it is therefore essential to select a relevant framework for the distribution being studied. With any boundary, however, it is possible for the index to be distorted by the 'boundary effect' to give a figure closer to the maximum than would be justified; this arises because the nearest neighbors of points near to the boundary may in fact lie beyond the boundary and hence not be properly counted, thus increasing the figure for the observed mean distance. It is also essential that the points in the pattern being analyzed are of the same date and similar function, and that the pattern should be complete. The index R describes only a part of the total pattern and can serve as a useful basis for asking more detailed questions about the factors that underlie the observed pattern. The technique has been useful to archaeologists studying the distribution of sites over a landscape and their relation to each other.
needle: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A thin, pointed implement normally of bone or metal used for sewing. There is a hole at the blunt end for threading the sewing material through the needle, which is then used to carry it through the fabric being joined or embroidered.
Nenana Complex: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Prehistoric culture (or complex) in south-central Alaska dated to c 12,000-10,500 bp. It is characterized by small bifacial projectile points (Chindadn points). It is the earliest dated set of archaeological finds in Alaska.
network analysis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: network method
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The study of any network or system of links, sites, points, and nodes, especially a communication system such as roads. The way in which the network is organized is studied rather than the actual lengths of the links, to determine the degree to which an efficient system has been evolved. Roman roads, for instance, are particularly suitable for this sort of analysis, and the changing patterns demanded by military and civilian usage can be distinguished. The analysis is aimed at understanding the reasons for a particular network configuration, which may be economic, geographical, or social.
Nietoperzowa Cave: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Jerzmanowice
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Prehistoric cave site northwest of Kraków, southern Poland. There are Middle Palaeolithic assemblages of sidescrapers correlating to the end of the Middle Pleistocene, Last Interglacial, and Early Glacial. Upper Palaeolithic levels contain laurel-leaf points of the Jerzmanowician industry, with one radiocarbon date of 38,500 bp. There are Neolithic and later remains in the top layer.
nomarch: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Governor of the ancient Egyptian administrative division called the nome. The district governor was appointed as a delegate by the Pharaoh and tended to be an autonomous chieftain in troubled periods. Nomarchs often built lavish tombs for themselves.
nome: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: An administrative unit or province of ancient Egypt, each consisting of a town or group of villages with its own guardian deity, district governor (nomarch), and symbol or standard. There were 42-44 such provinces in Egypt, varying over the course of the centuries, which ancient Egyptians called sepat. The system of division into provinces existed at least from the Old Kingdom (c 2575-2130 BC) and continued until the Muslim conquest (640 AD). In the Graeco-Roman period, whose temples are the source of the surviving lists of nomes, there were 22 nomes in Upper Egypt and 20 in Lower Egypt. In Ptolemaic times, a 'heptanomis' of seven nomes was formed in Middle Egypt. The Nile valley south of Ombos was sometimes regarded as one with the province of Nubia. The Nomarchs were appointed as delegates by the Pharaoh and tended to be autonomous chieftains in troubled periods.
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