Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for seeds:

seeds: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: A variety of seeds may be preserved on archaeological sites by charring, grain impressions, or as a result of waterlogging. They may be the seeds of weed plants, fruits, pulses (see Beans), or the grains of cereals.
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. "
beans: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: The seeds or pods of certain leguminous plants of the family Fabaceae and important to man since the beginning of food production. Most modern beans are of the genus Phaseolus, different species of which occur wild in two hemispheres. Their cultivation commenced at an early date in both. These species all originated in Mexico and South America, spreading to the Old World after Columbus. The earliest finds of cultivated Phaseolus beans are from 6th millennium BC Peru and Mexico. Vicia faba, the ancestor of the broad bean, was confined to the Old World, and was already being grown in the Neolithic Near East. Later in the Neolithic, the species appeared in Spain, Portugal, and eastern Europe. During the Bronze Age, the field bean grew in southern and central Europe, and by the Iron Age it reached Britain.
carbonization: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: adj. carbonized, charring
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The burning or scorching of organic materials, such as plants, seeds, or grains, in conditions of insufficient oxygen which results in their preservation. Charcoal is a widely-known example.
Chilca: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the coastal valley south of modern Lima, Peru, where excavations have revealed settlements dating to the Pre-Ceramic period c 4200 BC. The Chilca Monument was originally a summer camp and later, due to an increasingly warm climate, became favorable for a subsistence pattern called encanto. There are remains of conical huts of cane thatched with sedge. The dead were buried wrapped in twined-sedge mats and the skins of the guanaco. The lomas, patches of vegetation outside the valleys that were watered at that season by fogs, began to dry up. The lomas had provided wild seeds, tubers, and large snails; and deer, guanaco, owls, and foxes were hunted. The camps were eventually abandoned c 2500 BC in favor of permanent fishing villages. Dolichocephalic human remains date to this period but appear ultimately to have been replaced by brachycephalic types some time after 2500 BC.
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.
ecofact: CATEGORY: flora; fauna
DEFINITION: Any flora or fauna material found at an archaeological site; nonartifactual evidence that has not been technologically altered but that has cultural relevance, such as a shell carried from the ocean to an inland settlement. Seeds, pollen, animal bone, insects, fish bones, and mollusks are all ecofacts; the category includes both inorganic and organic ecofacts.
floral ecofacts: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: Ecofacts derived from plants. They are subdivided into microspecimens (pollen, opal phytoliths) and macrospecimens (seeds, plant fragments, impressions).
flot: CATEGORY: technique; term
DEFINITION: A term from the technique of flotation; it is used to describe the material which floats on water or other media during the flotation process. Flot can be plant remains such as seeds and charcoal, insect remains, shells, as well as miscellaneous intrusive material like plant roots which are sorted from the sample before analysis.
flotation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique developed to assist in the recovery of plant, insect, and molluscan remains from archaeological deposits; a method of screening in which minute pieces of flora are separated from the soil by agitation with water. The technique works on the principle that organic material such as carbonized seeds, snail-shells, and beetle wing-cases have a lower specific gravity than inorganic materials such as soil and stone, and will thus float on the top of a suitable liquid medium while the rest will sink. Water is commonly used for flotation, though there are disadvantages since it has a fairly low specific gravity and heavier material such as fruit stones will sink. Other media have been used, such as carbon tetrachloride solution or zinc chloride solution. Flotation of samples by hand is called wet sieving. Samples of material are slowly poured into water, any lumps are broken up, and the flot is drawn off with a sieve. The method is more controlled than flotation by machine, and the recovery rate is better. For large-scale excavations, machines are used. Operating principles vary: samples are poured into a large container of water, or water and paraffin, which is agitated by air injection or by currents of inflowing water. The addition of a floculating agent increases surface tension, though not all machines are 'froth flotation' machines. The flot is carried off the surface through a mesh, or series of meshes to allow preliminary sorting. Samples retrieved are sent away for specialist identification and analysis by an archaeobotanist.
froth flotation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Flotation in which the separation is enhanced by using a liquid to which a frothing agent, such as a detergent, has been added and bubbling air through it, forming a froth in which certain lightweight materials collect. Soil samples agitated in froth flotation, such as seeds and charcoal fragments, can be more easily separated from the matrix by this method.
Gobedra: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small rock shelter near Axum in northern Ethiopia which has yielded a stratified sequence covering the last 12,000 years. The earliest occurrence was of large blades, followed c 8000 BC by an industry dominated by backed microliths. Pottery first appeared at a level tentatively dated to the 3rd millennium BC. The seeds of cultivated finger millet (Eleusine coracana) are dated to between 7000-5000 years ago. This find, if correctly associated with these dates, would be the earliest-known evidence for an indigenous African crop. The latest stone industry was a specialized one of small steep scrapers.
Grauballe Man: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Danish bog burial in central Jutland of the Roman Iron Age with a radiocarbon date c 310 AD. Grauballe Man was naked and his neck had been cut almost from ear to ear. His skin was particularly well-preserved by the peat. His last meal had consisted of a gruel made of 63 different types of identifiable seeds.
heavy fraction: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The heaviest materials that sink to the bottom of flotation equipment mesh -- such as pottery sherds, flint, and large seeds.
Karako: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village site in Nara prefecture, Japan, of the Yayoi culture that is the type-site for the western Yayoi pottery chronology. Over 100 dwelling and storage pits contained pottery covering the whole span of the Yayoi period in this area. Organic materials were well-preserved, including baskets, wooden agricultural tools, a bundle of rice plants, melon seeds, nuts, and bones of wild boar, deer, dogs, and cattle. A bronze bell casting mold indicated craft production.
light fraction: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The lighter materials that float to the top of flotation equipment during agitation -- such as seeds, shell, or flint chips.
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.
Macassans: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Indonesian traders, particularly from Sulawesi, who visited tropical Australia during the Indonesian monsoon season. They collected and processed sea-slugs (trepang, bêche-de-mer, sea cucumber), an important ingredient in their cooking. Archaeological evidence consists of stone structures used to support boiling vats, scatters of Indonesian potsherds, ash concentrations from smokehouses, graves, and living tamarind trees descended from seeds brought by the trepangers. Their cultural legacies to the Aborigines included metal tools, dugout canoes, vocabulary, art motifs, song cycles, rituals, and depictions of Macassan praus in rock paintings and stone arrangements. Macassan voyagers to Australia arrived around 1700 AD and continued till the end of the 19th century.
macrofloral remains: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: macrobotanical remains
CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: Those plant remains from archaeological sites that are visible to the naked eye, primarily seeds and charcoal.
mano: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: handstone
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A one- or two-handled small and flat ground stone tool used with a metate (quern) for grinding vegetable material such as maize, seeds, nuts, pigments, etc. Manos date dates to the Archaic Indian period, the word coming from Spanish mano de piedra, hand stone" -- referring to the upper stone which is usually cylindrical or ovoid in shape. The underlying smooth stone slab is the metate. It is a hallmark artifact defining the economic or subsistence base of prehistoric societies. Its forms vary considerably from a barely modified cobble to a long cylinder similar to a rolling pin."
mesquite pod: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: The edible, bean-like seed vessel harvested from the mesquite tree (genus Prosopis) of southwestern US, central America, and South America. Native Americans cooked the sugary pods into a syrup; the seeds could also be roasted and eaten.
metate: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: lower grindstone, concave quern, stone saddle quern
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A ground-stone slab with a concave upper surface used as a lower millstone against which another stone is rubbed to grind vegetable material such as cereal grains, seeds, nuts, etc. A metate is one of a two-part milling apparatus -- the other part being with a mano (handheld upper grindstone). Metates are found in agricultural and preagricultural contexts over much of the world and are often made of volcanic rock in Mesoamerica. It is a Spanish term for the smoothed, usually immobile, stone with a concave upper surface and is mostly associated with the grinding of maize. It is a hallmark artifact in the definition of prehistoric subsistence patterns.
milling stone: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: grinding stone; metate
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Any stone slab or basin that is used to process seeds, nuts, and other such foods by rubbing, grinding, or pounding them against this object with another stone.
Nabta Playa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A low-lying lake basin near the Egypt/Sudan border in the desert west of the Nile. Extensive scattered prehistoric occupation is attested from c 8100 bp, with assemblages of wild plant foods and ceramics. Settlement later concentrated in larger sites adjacent to the lakeshore. Pottery and concave-based arrowheads show affinities to those from Early Khartoum and the Fayyum, respectively. Cattle, probably domestic, were in the faunal remains. Sheep and goats were present by 6700 bp. Seeds were well-preserved and include two kinds of barley, doum palm, date palm, possible sorghum and several weed species indicative of the presence of cultivation. The degree of continuity from earlier times illustrated by this Neolithic phase is noteworthy, as is the early documentation of food production. A large aggregation site of 7000-6000 BP has associated megaliths.
Nile: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The longest river in Africa and the world, stretching for 6741 km, rising in highlands south of the equator and flowing northward through northeastern Africa to drain into the Mediterranean Sea. Its waters and fertile flood-plain allowed Egyptian civilization to develop in the deserts of northeastern Africa. The Nile River basin covers about one-tenth of the area of the African continent. Three rivers flow in from the south: Blue Nile, White Nile, and Atbara. The southern section between Aswan and Khartoum interrupted by six 'cataracts' consisting of a series of rapids and corresponding to the land of Nubia. The first use of the Nile for irrigation in Egypt began when seeds were sown in the mud left after the river's annual floodwaters had subsided and it has supported continuous human settlement for at least 5000 years.
paleobotany: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: palaeobotany; prehistoric botany
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of ancient plant life and the remains of ancient or extinct plants. This includes material which has no direct connection with man and his activities, and is thus less specific to archaeology than palaeoethnobotany or archaeobotany. Much of man's material equipment came, however, from vegetable matter. This material is occasionally preserved by desiccation, waterlogging, or charring -- or by fossilization. From these sources various useful results have been obtained, notably in ascertaining the early history of cultivated crops. Paleobotany provides information about the climate and environment and about materials available for food, fuel, tools, and shelter. Paleobotany is a branch of paleontology and it includes pollen analysis, palynology, reconstruction of climatic sequences for interglacial periods, study of seeds, and study of plant remains.
quinoa: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: A pigweed (Chenopodium quinoa) of the high Andes whose seeds are ground and widely used as food in Peru. It was cultivated at high elevations in Andean prehistory.
seed beater: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An instrument usually made of wood or reeds that is formed into a racketlike shape and used to strike seeds from bushes.
shifting cultivation: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: swidden agriculture
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A primitive and widespread form of agriculture in which forest was cleared, commonly by chopping and burning small trees. It is one of the earliest forms of cultivation. The clearance would be followed by planting of crops in the clearance -- seeds planted in holes poked into the ashes -- and their harvesting and replanting for a few years. Without fertilizers, however, the land soon loses its nutritional value and the clearance must be left fallow, to grow over again, while other areas of forest are cleared. A return to the original plot may be made after a reasonable length of time, hence it is also called shifting cultivation and cyclic agriculture. In temperate regions it is a wasteful method since soil fertility and crop yields, though initially high, decline rapidly, after which a new stretch of forest must be cleared.
sieving: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique of particle size analysis used to determine the size grades of pebble gravel, sand, and coarse silt in sediment and soils of archaeological deposits. The archaeologist processes all the earth from the site through a fine mesh, then does dry screening in a shaker frame or wet sieving with flowing water. It improves the recovery rate of artifacts. For lighter soils, dry sieving may be effective. Wet sieving is used for more claylike material and for recovering bones, shells, seeds, and other biological remains. The sieved residues are then dried and sorted by hand. The sample is placed on the top sieve of a series of nested sieves. Sieve mesh sizes are standardized. Wet sieving as part of a flotation technique is used to recover small remains from sites.
slash and burn: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: slash-and-burn agriculture, swidden (North American), shifting cultivation, roza (Spanish American), Brandwirtschaft (German), slash and burn agriculture, swidden agriculture
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A primitive and widespread form of agriculture in which forest was cleared by chopping and burning small trees. It is one of the earliest forms of cultivation. The clearance would be followed by planting of crops in the clearance -- seeds planted in holes poked into the ashes -- and their harvesting and replanting for a few years. Without fertilizers, however, the land soon loses its nutritional value and the clearance must be left fallow, to grow over again, while other areas of forest are cleared. A return to the original plot may be made after a reasonable length of time, hence it is also called shifting cultivation and cyclic agriculture. In temperate regions it is a wasteful method since soil fertility and crop yields, though initially high, decline rapidly, after which a new stretch of forest must be cleared.
sorghum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: India: jowar, cholam, jonna; West Africa: Guinea corn; China: kaoliang
CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: A cereal grain plant, probably originating in Africa, with edible starchy seeds. It was probably first cultivated when increasing dryness began to affect the already numerous human groups, after 7000 BP. This plant with its fine ears of grain needs 500-600 mm of water a year. Sorghum vulgare, which includes varieties of grain sorghums and grass sorghums, is grown for hay and fodder, and broomcorn, used in making brooms and brushes. Grain sorghums include durra, milo, shallu, kafir corn, Egyptian corn, great millet, and Indian millet. Sorghum is especially valued in hot and arid regions for its resistance to drought and heat.
Tollund Man: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Preserved body of an Iron Age man found in peat at Tollund Fen in Denmark; he had been hanged c 3rd century BC. Tollund Man had been hanged with a leather rope, and his body was dressed only in a cap and belt. His stomach contents were sufficiently preserved for analysis; his last meal was gruel made up of various seeds, both wild and cultivated.
Torihama: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Initial-Early Jomon shell midden site in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, dating to c 5000-3500 BC. Rich organic remains have been preserved by waterlogging, including a dugout canoe, canoe paddles, hunting bows, ax handles, lacquered wooden comb, basketry, melon rinds and seeds and mung beans, and many bone and wood artifacts.
wet sieving: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method used to separate organic material (seeds, snails, insects, etc.) from soil before drying, identification, and analysis. It is a more time-consuming method of extraction than flotation by machine, but has the advantage of being more accurate in its results since there is more control over extraction from the sample. The sample is poured into a sieve in a bowl of water, the lumps of soil are carefully broken up, and the organic material is trapped in the mesh while the soil particles are removed.

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