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Results for urial:

barrow: SYNONYM: burial mound; tumulus; burial cairn
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A round or elongated mound of earth or stones used in early times to cover one or more burials; a grave mound. The mound is often surrounded by a ditch, and the burials may be contained within a cist, mortuary enclosure, mortuary house, or chamber tomb. There are two types, the long (elongated) and the round barrow (also known as tumuli). The former were built in the Late Stone Age, the latter in the Bronze Age, though burial under a round mound was occasionally practiced during the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking periods.. The long barrow was a tribal or family burial vault built of stone slabs, some weighing many tons, and covered with earth or stones. The large, round barrows were often communal. They are often found in prehistoric sites in Britain -- earthen (or unchambered) long barrows from the Early and Middle Neolithic (Windmill Hill Culture). Other long barrows were constructed over megalithic tombs of gallery grave types. Most of the British round barrows incorporate circles of stakes. Bowl barrows --- simple round mounds, often surrounded by a ditch --- were the most common form, used throughout the Bronze Age and sporadically also in the Iron Age. The Wessex Culture of the southern English Early Bronze Age was characterized by special types of barrows: bell, disk, saucer, and pond barrows. Bell barrows have relatively small mounds and a berm or gap between the mound and the ditch; disk barrows are very small mounds in the center of a circular open space, surrounded by a ditch; saucer barrows are low disk-like mounds occupying the entire space up to the ditch; while the oddly named pond barrows are not mounds at all, but circular dish-shaped enclosures surrounded by an external bank. The related term 'cairn' is used to describe a mound constructed exclusively of stone. Barrow burials occur also in Roman and post-Roman times: one of the most famous of all barrows in Britain is that covering the Anglo-Saxon boat burial at Sutton Hoo.
boat burial: SYNONYM: boat grave
CATEGORY: term; feature
DEFINITION: A type of burial during the Late Iron Age in which a body or its cremated remains were placed in a boat, which was then covered by a mound of earth. This was a north European practice, common in Scandinavia and Britain from c 550 to 800 AD. This pagan ritual was widely adopted by the Vikings and practiced to a lesser extent by the Anglo-Saxons and Germans. In Norway alone there are 500 known boat burials, and many more from the rest of Scandinavia and other Viking colonies. To these seafaring people, ships were a means of transport, a way of life, and symbols of power and prestige. The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf" describes the belief that the journey to the afterlife could be achieved in a vessel. In Anglo-Saxon Britain there are three 7th century examples in Suffolk including the rich burial of Sutton Hoo. The best-known after Sutton Hoo are the 9th-century barrows of Oseberg and Gokstad in Norway and the 10th-century barrow at Ladby in Denmark. Burial in churchyards became customary in the 11th century in those areas."
bog burial: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Areas where human bodies are found in peat bogs in Scandinavia and northern Europe, including more than 160 from Denmark, and which are remarkably well-preserved. The chemicals in the peat preserve the bodies, which allows archaeologists to study aspects of past life, including the soft tissues of the bodies themselves and the contents of the stomachs. Burials and ritual deposits were interred in these bogs in antiquity, especially during the Bronze and Iron ages.
bundle burial: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A secondary burial practice in which the bones of the deceased are collected after the flesh has decayed and then are re-buried in a non-articulated pile, vessel, bundle, or other grave.
burial: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Inhumation or cremation -- the laying of a body in the ground, in a natural or artificial chamber, or in an urn after burning. In collective burial, a single chamber is used for more than one corpse. A primary burial is one for which a burial monument such as a barrow was erected. The term secondary burial is used for the practice of collecting the bones of a skeleton after the flesh has decayed, and placing them in some form of ossuary. In fractional burial, only some of the bones are so collected and interred. Archaeologists can learn a great deal about prehistoric societies by studying skeletons and the way they were buried. In some cultures, bodies were buried stretched out; in others they were placed in the ground in a fetal, or flexed position. In still other societies, the dead were exposed on platforms or in charnel houses, then when the flesh had decayed or been scavenged, the disarticulated bones were made into a bundle and buried. Sometimes bodies were cremated and the remains buried. Goods interred with a burial give many clues to the social position of the person and their culture and the study of bones can reveal sex, age, and information about nutrition and disease. The earliest deliberate burial of their dead was that of Neanderthal man of Palaeolithic times 100,000 years ago. They were buried in the cave in which the family continued to live. Food and tools were buried with them, proof of the belief in an afterlife. Neolithic man buried his dead in the long barrow, a communal tomb. Inhumation was followed by cremation in the Late Bronze Age.
burial mound: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A large artificial hill of earth and stones built or placed over the remains of the dead at the time of burial. In England the equivalent term is barrow; in Scotland, cairn; and in Europe and elsewhere, tumulus. In western Europe and the British Isles, burial cairns and barrows date primarily from the Neolithic Period and Early Bronze Age (4000 BC-600 AD).
Burial Mound Builders: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term used to describe the prehistoric Native Americans who constructed the burial and temple mounds that are widespread east of the Mississippi River. It was once thought to be a distinctive group of peoples, but now the mounds are assigned to the Hopewell and Adena cultures. Burial mounds were characteristic of the Indian cultures of east-central North America from about 1000 BC to 700 AD. The most numerous and grandly conceived ones, found in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys, were large conical or elliptical mounds surrounded by extensive earthworks.
Burial Mound Period: CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The penultimate period of eastern North American prehistoric chronology, from 1000 BC to 700 AD. Formulated in 1941 by J.A. Ford and Godon Willey, the total chronology, from early to late, is Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Burial Mound, and Temple Mound. The Burial Mound Period I (1000-300 BC) covers the period of transition from Late Archaic to Early Woodland ways of life and is associated especially with the Adena culture. Burial Mound II (300 BC-700 AD) is associated especially with Middle and Late Woodland groups, especially Hopewell.
burial orientation: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The direction or alignment of the body at the time of burial, especially the direction toward which the head is positioned. Burial orientation may vary according to the culture involved.
burial pit: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A pit aboriginally excavated for the interment of human remains.
burial population: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A set of human burials from a limited region and time period
burial urn: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A vessel in which the cremated ashes of one or more individuals are placed.
collective burial: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: The burial of a number of bodies, usually over a period of time.
flexed burial: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A method of burial in which the body is interred in a fetal position.
inhumation: SYNONYM: burial; grave burial
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The practice of burying the dead, contrasting with cremation and exposure. Burial may be in a dug grave, or in a natural or built chamber -- and may be simple or elaborate. Terms commonly used to describe it are: extended (with spine and leg bones more or less in a straight line), flexed (with the leg bones bent, but by less than 90 degrees) or crouched (with the hip and knee joints bent through more than 90 degrees). Extended burials may be supine (on the back), prone (on the face), or on the side. Primary inhumation is the initial burial of a deceased individual. Secondary inhumation is the practice of removing the remains of the deceased individual from the pyre to the grave.
interment: SYNONYM: burial
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The practice or act of burying the dead.
jar burial: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Any inhumation burial within a pottery vessel. Urn burial, in contrast, requires a much smaller pot. The use of jar burial occurred in the Mediterranean area, going back to the Early Bronze Age in Anatolia.
Kofun: SYNONYM: Great Burial Period, Tumulus Period
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The name of the protohistoric tomb period of Japan, 300-710 AD, and the type of tumulus used for the burials. . Large tombs were built which were covered with artificial hillocks about 8 meters high, with burial chambers about 2 meters underneath the top surface. The burial chamber, enclosed with stones, contained coffins and various funerary offerings. The period when tombs of this kind were built in abundance was characterized by Haji ware and Sue ware. It is divided into Early, 4th century; Middle, 5th century; and Late, late 5th-7th centuries. The Kofun period falls between the Yayoi period and the fully historic Nara period and partially overlaps the Asuka and Hakuho periods of art historians. In their writings, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki texts, the culture was explained. Early kofun were built by modifying natural hills, as were Late Yayoi burial mounds. Haji pottery, used throughout the Kofun period, is very similar to Yayoi pottery and farmers lived in the same kinds of houses, using very similar tools. Technical advances over the yayoi period include irrigation canals and dams. There were also silversmiths who made the ornaments deposited in kofun and professional potters began making Sue pottery in the 5th century. Those in the fertile and well-protected Yamato Basin actively sought new technical and administrative skills on the continent and thus artisans came to make new kinds of pottery, ornaments, and weapons. Yamato leaders gained control over much of Japan in the 7th century and moved the capital to Heijo in 710. The magnificent kofun tombs indicate that the Yamato court based in the Yamato area (the present Nara prefecture) succeeded in bringing almost the whole of Japan under its control.
Lake Hauroko burial: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site of a 17th-century AD burial of a Maori woman on an island in Lake Hauroko, southwestern South Island, New Zealand. When found, the skeleton was still sitting on a bier of sticks and wrapped in a woven flax cloak with a dogskin collar with feather edging.
Maupiti burial site: SYNONYM: Maupiti burial ground
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Eastern Polynesian burial site on Maupiti, Society Islands, dated to 800-1200 AD. There are 16 flexed and extended burials with grave goods of adzes, pendants, pearl-shell fishhooks paralleling the Hane in the Marquesas, and elsewhere in the Society Islands at Vaito'otia (at Huahine) and in New Zealand.
platform burial: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The practice of placing a corpse on an artificial, above-ground structure; the body was sometimes retrieved at a later date for interment.
primary burial: SYNONYM: primary inhumation
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The initial or direct inhumation of the fully articulated corpse.
secondary burial: SYNONYM: secondary inhumation
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The practice of removing the remains of a corpse to another grave or ossuary which were initially buried or put elsewhere.
simple burial: SYNONYM: primary burial
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: The placement of a body in the ground in sort type of coffin.
urial: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: A species of wild sheep in Iran, Turkestan, and the Himalayas with the first record of domestication from Anau c 5000 BC. It replaced the moufflon to become the ancestor of nearly all modern sheep.
Abydos: SYNONYM: ancient Abdjw
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Anatolian site, which was a pilgrimage center for the worship of the god Osiris and the chosen burial place of the pharaohs of the 1st Dynasty. Located on the east side of the Dardanelles and west bank of the Nile northeast of modern Canakkale, it flourished from the Predynastic period until Christian times (c. 4000 BC-AD 641) and survived until late Byzantine times as the toll station of the Hellespont. The earliest significant remains are the tombs of the Protodynastic and Early Dynastic periods (c. 3100-2686 BC), including that of Seti I of the 19th Dynasty (c. 1300 BC). From the 2nd Dynasty, the royal graves were at Saqqara. It was from Abydos that Xerxes crossed the strait to invade Greece in 480 BC.
ad sanctos: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Describes the custom or arranging to be buried in or beside a church. Around 313 AD when Constantine's edict granted tolerance to Christians, miniature temples were erected over tombs of martyrs. This was the start of funerary basilicas adjacent to towns from the 4th century onward. It was believed that burial near the tombs of saints would guarantee protection in the next world. This gave rise to the custom of burial in or close to a church.
Adena: CATEGORY: culture
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.
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.
Adlerberg: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age culture in southwest Germany considered to be a variant of the Unetice culture. There were a number of flat inhumation cemeteries in which the burials included copper and bronze daggers and pins, flint tools, and one-handled pottery cups.
Afanasievo culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Neolithic culture of the Yenisei valley of southern Siberia. The people, who were stock breeders and hunters, probably moved into the area in the late 3rd millennium BC. Excavations uncovered burials under kurgans (low mounds), surrounded by circular stone walls. There was stamped dentate pottery, stone, bone, and bronze tools, and some copper ornaments with the burials. The Afanasievo people were the first food-producers in the area, breeding cattle, horses, and sheep, but also practiced hunting. The Afanasievo were succeeded by the Andronovo culture in the mid-2nd millennium BC.
Aguada: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture of northwestern Argentina during the period 700-1000 AD, located on the western slopes of the Andes, and noted for the fine quality of its arts. Decorated copper and bronze plaques and polychrome yellow and black pottery with designs of cats, dragons, humans, birds, warriors, weaponry, and trophy heads are characteristic and reflect a possible influence from Tiahuanaco. Decapitated burials are a further indication that warfare was a dominant preoccupation of Aguada. Its sudden disappearance from the archaeological record in c 1000 AD was probably the result of invasion from the east.
Ahmose II (reigned 570-526 BC): SYNONYM: Amasis, Amosis II
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: King of the late 26th Dynasty and originally a general in Nubia who came to the throne after his defeat of King Apries (589-570 BC). Ahmose was sent to pacify mutineering troops when they proclaimed him king. He fought Apries in a civil war and killed him in battle, though later giving him a royal burial. His reign was a time of great prosperity in Egypt.
Alaca Hüyük: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in north central Turkey, near Boghaz Köy and 150 km east of Ankara, that was occupied in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd millennia BC. Its Chalcolithic and Copper Age phases include a cemetery of 13 extremely rich tombs from c 2500 BC (Early Bronze Age II). The burials were single and double inhumations in rectangular pits, with fine metalwork including copper figurines (thought to be mounts from funeral standards), sun discs, ornaments, weapons, jugs and goblets, diadems, bracelets, and beads. The quantity of gold and copper imply that this was a royal cemetery. The tombs were lined with rough stone and skulls and hooves of animals were hung from the wooden beams as part of the funeral rite. The site was later reoccupied under the Hittites, who erected a monumental gateway with two great stone sphinxes. It has been tentatively identified as the Hittite holy city of Arinna.
Almeria: SYNONYM: Almerian
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A coastal province of southeastern Spain where a Neolithic culture lived in the 5th and 4th millennia BC (c 5500-4300 BC). The village of El Garcel is the typical of the hilltop agricultural communities with circular huts of wattle and daub (with hearths and storage pits), plain baggy pottery, and trapezoidal flint arrowheads. The pottery was of a Western Neolithic tradition, possibly deriving from North Africa. Single and multiple burials were in dry stone cists under round mounds, and thought to be ancestral to the corbel-vaulted tombs of the Copper Age.
Altai: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The mountain range and region of southern Siberia which has yielded important prehistoric remains. Rising above 4000 meters, this area has Palaeolithic deposits (Ulalinka Creek) and a late glacial occupation (Ust' Kanskaia Cave). Some food-producing cultures appeared c 3rd millennium BC and metallurgy entered c 2nd millennium, when copper ore was exploited. Pastoral nomadism and horseback riding were introduced in the 1st millennium BC. There are rich burials which indicate a society of social differentiation and a warrior elite which acquired precious goods from far-flung regions. In the 4th-2nd centuries BC, iron gradually replaced bronze. Altai groups are also characterized by animal art styles, similar to the Scythians who occupied the steppes of southern Russia to the west.
Altyn-depe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age site dating from the late 6th till the late third millennium BC in southern Turkmenistan. City walls, a ceremonial center, elite residences, cemeteries, and burials have been found as well as a massive multi-stage platform and artifacts of Harappan materials.
Amlash: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in northwest Iran, southwest of the Caspian Sea, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Rich burials in tombs have produced gold and silver vessels, pottery figurines, animal-shaped pottery rhytons (ritual vessels) -- material similar to that at Marlik Tepe.
Amorgos: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island in the eastern Cyclades, Greece, which was prosperous in the Early Bronze Age and had three cities, Arcesine, Minoa, and Aegiale. There is an important cemetery on the island with single burials in cist graves, accompanied by copper weapons and pottery. Fine carved stone figurines of Early Cycladic type have also been found, usually made of marble and some being almost life-sized.
Amri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Indus Valley in Pakistan, probably dating to the early 3rd millennium. It was the first site to be recognized as belonging to the Early Harappan Period when excavated by Majumdar in 1929. Its name has been given to a style of hand- and wheel-made painted pottery found in its Chalcolithic levels and on tells over much of Sind and up into the hills of Baluchistan. These tall globular beakers of fine buff ware are painted with geometric designs in black between red horizontal bands. Chert and some copper were used for tools and the architecture was in mud-brick. Fractional burial was the practice for the dead. Periods I and II represent the pre-Harappan settlement of agricultural farmers, who kept cattle, sheep, goat and donkey, but also hunted (or herded) gazelle. In the later part of Period II Harappan ceramics appear alongside Amri wares; Period III represents a full mature Harappan occupation. The culture was gradually succeeded by that of the Indus civilization. The uppermost levels contained Jhukar and Jhangar material.
amulet: SYNONYM: meket, nehet, sa, wedja, periapta
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small good-luck charms, often in the form of gods, hieroglyphs, and sacred animals and made of precious stones or faience. They were especially popular with Egyptians and other Eastern peoples, worn both in life and placed in burials or within mummy wrappings. Amulets were supposed to afford protection and may have been thought to imbue the wearer with particular qualities. Some superstitiously thought amulets could heal diseases or help the wearer avoid them.
Andronovo culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture of southern Siberia, between the Don and Yenisei Rivers, dating to the 2nd millennium BC. The culture was relatively uniform in this large area and agriculture played a large role. Wheat and millet were cultivated and cattle, horses, and sheep bred. The metal-using culture (ores from the Altai), which succeeded the Afansievo, lived in settlements of up to ten large log cabin-like semisubterranean houses. Bowl- and flowerpot-shaped vessels were flat-bottomed, smoothed, and decorated with geometric patterns, triangles, rhombs, and meanders. Burial was in contracted position either in stone cists or enclosures with underground timber chambers. The wooden constructions in rich graves may have designated social differentiation. The Andronovo complex is related to the Timber-Grave (Russian Srubna) group in southern Russia and both are branches of the Indo-Iranian cultural block. The Andronovo were the ancestors of Karasuk nomads who later inhabited the Central Asiatic and Siberian steppes.
Anghelu Ruju: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Copper Age necropolis in Alghero, northwest Sardinia. It contained 36 rock-cut tombs, some very elaborate in plan and decorated with carved bulls' heads. The tombs were used for multiple burials and contained material of the Ozieri culture (copper and silver objects) as well as Ozieri and Beaker pottery.
Anglo-Saxons: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The name of the combined cultures, the Angles and the Saxons, who left their North Sea coastal homelands in the 5th century AD and moved to eastern England after the breakdown of Roman Rule. The name derives from two specific groups --- the Angles of Jutland and the Saxons from northern Germany. Some other Germanic peoples took part in the migrations, such as the Jutes and the Frisians, and they are sometimes included under this name. The language, culture, and settlement pattern of medieval and later England can be traced directly to the Anglo-Saxons. The movement to the area probably began in the 4th century when barbarian Foederati went to serve in the Roman army in Britain. The main immigration began in the middle of the 5th century. Bede, writing in the early 8th century, gives the only reliable historical record for this period, though incidental information can be found in the Old English literature, particularly the poem of Beowulf. The English kingdoms took shape by the late 6th century. Archaeologically, there are three periods: the Early or Pagan Saxon period went until the general acceptance of Christianity in the mid-7th century; the Middle Saxon period until the 9th century, and the Late Saxon period which went up till the Norman invasion of 1066. The earliest period's remains are mainly burial deposits, often cremation in urns or by inhumation in cemeteries of trench graves or under barrows. Grave goods often include knives, sword or spear, shield boss, and brooches, buckles, beads, girdle-hangers, and pottery -- depending on the gender. Most archaeological evidence comes from the cemeteries, including the exceptional ship burial at Sutton Hoo. Churches were built and in the Middle and Late Saxon periods, including Bradford-Upon-Avon and Deerhurst. Important monuments of the Middle and Late Saxon periods are the royal palaces at Yeavering and Cheddar. The Late Saxon period, after the Viking invasions, saw the growth of the first towns in Britain since the Roman period, following the establishment of Burhs in response to the Scandinavian threat. There was wide-ranging trade, developed coinage, and improved pottery manufacture and metal-working. The separate British kingdoms (most important: Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex) eventually became a unified England with a capital at Winchester in Wessex. The Anglo-Saxons were responsible for the introduction of the English language and for the establishment of the settlement patterns of medieval England.
Anyang: SYNONYM: An-yang, Yinxu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in the Honan province of China that was the last capital of the Shang (Yin) Dynasty, occupied in the 12th and 11th centuries BC. It was founded c 14 BC and overthrown by the Chou in 1027 BC and was the seat of 12 kings who ruled for 273 years, a time referred to as the historical Anyang period. Anyang is one of the most extensively excavated sites, beginning in 1928. The buildings had rammed earth floors and many sacrifices of men and animals and chariot burials were found under them. Deep storage pits held oracle bones with inscriptions in an archaic form of Chinese, but the most important finds came from the cemeteries, which included royal tombs. At least as early as the Song dynasty (960--1279), Anyang was known as a source of bronze ritual vessels. Very large cruciform shaft tombs were found near the village of Houjiazhuang. There were eight large tombs in the western part of the Xibeigang cemetery and five more in the east. Excavation has shown that rows of satellite burials in the eastern section were not laid down at the time of the royal entombments but instead were later sacrifices offered to the tombs' occupants; these burials correspond with the oracle texts descriptions of victims sacrificed, sometimes by the hundreds, to the reigning king's ancestors. The only intact royal tomb yet discovered is that of Fu Hao, which is not in the Xibeigang cemetery but across the river at Xiatoun. Later excavations have established that Anyang was heir to the flourishing civilization of the Erligang Phase.
Apennine culture: SYNONYM: Apennine Bronze Age
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The Bronze Age culture of the Italian peninsula, lasting from c 2000-800 BC. The culture's pottery was distinctively dark and highly burnished, and decorated with incised and punctuated bands filled with white inlay. The handles, often single, were elaborate and included crested, horned, and tongue types. The people seemed to depend on pastoral economy and stock breeding in the mountains which give the culture its name. Trade and a more mixed economy has evidence at some sites -- Ariano, Liparis, Luni, Narce, and Taranto -- and the culture had some influence from the Balkans. Some inhumation cemeteries are known, but burials are rare. Bronze tools, though in use, are rarely found until very late in the period.
arcosolium: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A type of tomb in Roman catacombs as well as pagan and Christian burial places, consisting of an arched cell or niche, with a semi-circular vaulted ceiling.
Arene Candide: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site at Finale Ligure on the Italian Riviera whose excavation revealed a stratigraphy extending from the Upper Palaeolithic through Epi-Palaeolithic, to Early, Middle, and Late Neolithic, as well as poor levels from the Bronze and Iron Ages up to the Roman period. There were some rich burials in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th levels. The 1940s excavations by Bernabò Brea helped him make important interpretations of the Neolithic period in the Mediterranean.
Argar, El: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age settlement near Almeria in southeast Spain that is the type site of a culture of the 2nd millennium BC. The settlement was fortified and contained rectangular stone houses, though little has been recovered as they are not as well-preserved as the Argaric sites Ifre and El Oficio. The settlement also contained 950 interments, with the earliest in cists and later switching to jar burial. Grave goods in the cist burial phase included daggers, halberds, and wristguards. In the jar burials, there was also faience, and swords and axes of copper or bronze and gold and silver ornaments. Silver was more common in this area than anywhere else in Europe at the time. The pottery of this culture was plain burnished in simple shapes. The Agaric culture, which developed trading with eastern Mediterranean centers, reached its peak between 1700-1000 BC and spread through the central, southern, and Levantine regions and to the Balearic Islands. The area may owe its origin to immigration from western Greece.
Arras: SYNONYM: Aras
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The site of an Iron Age cemetery in Yorkshire, England, with at least 90 burials, some barrows covering the burials and some with chariots. There are several related sites (Danes' Graves) in east Yorkshire with similar grave goods which define the Arras culture along with the burials. Material dates the Arras culture to c 5-1 BC and the Arras people seem to have been intruders from the continent. Their artifacts suggest links with the migrations of the Parisii from eastern France and the Rhineland. The chariot gear includes a distinctive three-link horse bit.
Artenac: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A cave site in Charente, France, which is the type-site of the Artenacien culture. Artifacts include copper beads, flint daggers, and fine pottery with beaked handles. There are simple megalithic tombs and burial caves, dating to c 3000-2000 BC.
Arthur (c 5th century AD?): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The legendary British king who is described in medieval romances as the leader of a knightly fellowship called the Round Table. It is said that he rallied the British against the Anglo-Saxon invaders and that behind the legend there may be a sub-Roman warleader who filled such a role. Though his name does not survive in contemporary records, he may have led the British at the battle or siege of Mount Badon which stopped the Saxon advance c 490 AD for some fifty years hence. All the historical references to him in the chronicles of Bede, Gildas, Nenius, Geoffrey of Monmouth and others were written between 100 and 600 years after the event, so they are considered unreliable for archaeologists. The search probably started with the monks of Glastonbury, who in 1191 claimed to have found the burial of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere inscribed with the words, Here lies Arthur in the Isle of Avalon buried". Various locations as far apart as Cornwall and Scotland are claimed as the site of Mount Badon; the refortified Iron Age hillfort of Badbury Rings in Dorset seems the most credible possibility. The site of Arthur's court at Camelot may be the historical site of South Cadbury. Excavations carried out at South Cadbury revealed an important fortified settlement of the 5th and 6th centuries which could have been the center from which British resistance to the Saxons was organized."
Asia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Preceramic site on the south-central coast of Peru with a series of mounds and burials with evidence of trephination.
Asiab, Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A semi-permanent settlement in the Zagros region of western Iran, dated between 7100-6750 BC, belonging to the Karim Shahir culture. There is evidence of tool manufacture, settlement patterns, and subsistence methods, including the crude beginnings of the domestication of both plants and animals in this site as well as nearby sites at Guran, Ganj-e Dareh, and Ali Kosh. Burials have been excavated, covered in red ochre.
Assur: SYNONYM: Ashur
CATEGORY: deity; site
DEFINITION: A solar deity which was the chief god of the city of Assur and the kingdom of Assyria. With the latter's conquests, Assur assumed leadership of the Assyrian pantheon and supremacy over the other gods of Mesopotamia. The deity was conceived in anthropomorphic terms. The image of the deity was fed and clothed and was responsible for fertility and security, and represented as a winged sun-disc. It is also the name of the ancient religious capital of the Assyrian empire in northern Mesopotamia, on the bank of the River Tigris at modern Qalaat-Shergat, which was a great trading center and the burial place of the kings even after the government moved to Nineveh. First recorded in the 3rd millennium BC as a frontier post of the empire of Akkad, it then became an independent city-state and finally the capital of Assyria. After Assyria's collapse in 614 BC it failed to survive but was briefly revived under the Parthians. Areas of the palaces, temples, walls, and town have been cleared, and a sondage pit was cut beneath the Temple of Ishtar (pre-Sargonid) to reveal the 3rd and early 2nd millennium levels (the first use of this technique in Mesopotamian excavation). Sumerian statues were found -- among the earliest evidence of Sumerian contact outside the southern plain. For over 2000 years successive kings built and rebuilt the fortifications, temple, and palace complexes: inscriptions associated with these monuments have helped in the construction of the chronology of the site. Three large ziggurats dominated the city with the largest being 60 m square (completed by Shamsi Adad I c 1800 bc). It was originally dedicated to Enlil, but later to Assur; the dedication of the other temples also changed through time. Representations on cylinder seals suggest that many buildings might have had parapets and towers. Assurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) moved the capital to Calah and by 614 BC the city of Assur had fallen to the Median (Medes) army.
Avebury: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Wiltshire, England, at which stands one of Britain's finest megalithic monuments (known as henges) and one of the largest ceremonial structures in Europe. It was built c 2000 BC in the Neolithic, where the ridgeways of southern England meet, a natural site for tribal gatherings. It consists of a large bank with internal ditch (1.2 km long) with four equally spaced entrances. Inside the ditch was set a circle of 98 sarsen stones, weighing as much as 40 tons each. In the center were two smaller stone circles, each c 100 meters in diameter. The northern circle contains a U-shaped setting of three large stones, and the southern inner circle once had a complex arrangement of stones at its center. The Ring Stone, a huge stone perforated by a natural hole, stood within the earthworks and main stone circle at the southern entrance. The southern entrance leads out to two parallel rows of sarsens forming an avenue 15 m wide and 2.5 km long which ends at a ritual building (the so-called Sanctuary) on Overton Hill. Traces of a second avenue remain on the opposite side of the monument. From the bottom of the ditch came sherds of Neolithic Windmill Hill, Peterborough, and Grooved Ware styles, while higher up were fragments of South British (Long Necked) Beaker and Bronze Age pottery. Burials with Beaker and Rinyo-Clacton wares have been excavated at the bases of some of the stones. Near the southern end of the Avenue was an occupation site with Neolithic and Beaker sherds. The complex geometry of the site is studied, especially the possible astronomical alignments built into it. The circles at Avebury and the wooden structure on Overton Hill were all probably built at the same time by Neolithic communities.
Aylesford: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery of cremation burials of the 1st century BC discovered in the 1880s in the county of Kent, England. It was excavated by Sir Arthur Evans, who identified the grave goods as belonging to the Iron Age Belgae. It is thought to represent the arrival of Belgic peoples fleeing from Gaul in advance of Caesar's army. Aylesford and Swarling are now the type sites of that culture in southeastern England. There was urned cremation in flat graves and the use of wheel-thrown pots with pedestal bases and horizontal cordon ornament. Brooches (fibula), wooden stave-built buckets, and bronze have also been found. The culture survived for a time after the Roman conquest in 43 AD.
Aymara: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A large South American tribal group occupying the Titicaca plateau (central Andes) in the Late Intermediate Period -- and the language spoken by them. The Aymara language is still spoken some parts of Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. The Aymara kingdoms" -- Canchi Colla Lupaca Collagua Ubina Pacasa Caranga Charca Quillaca Omasuyo and Collahuaya -- fought amongst themselves but also shared cultural characteristics. Some of these characteristics appear to have been incorporated into the Inca political system such as class stratification a powerful ruling class and chullpa burials. The peoples lived by cultivating tubers and herding alpaca and llama."
Ba and Shu: SYNONYM: also Pa and Ch'u; Pa-Shu
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Ancient kingdoms ruling the area of modern Szechwan. Pa came into being in the 11th century BC and established relations with Shu in the 5th century BC. Shortly before 316 BC, the state was conquered by the Ch'in and incorporated into the Ch'in empire. In the middle of the 3rd century BC, the Pa region became part of the kingdom of Shu and was totally independent of north and central China.. Ba and Shu cultural remains are similar, especially the boat-coffin burials on river terraces and tanged willow-leaf bronze swords. The central region of Szechwan is still sometimes known as the Pa. region.
Bahrain: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island in the Persian Gulf that has been identified with the ancient land of Dilmun (Telmun) of about 2000 BC, a prosperous trading center linking Sumeria with the Indus Valley. Written records of the archipelago exist in Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman sources. Burial mounds in the north of Bahrain Island suggest a period of Sumerian influence in the 3rd millennium BC. There are densely packed fields of tumuli in Bahrain and at several places on the adjacent mainland. They are associated with densely packed complexes of cist burials. Excavation has shown the island to be an important link in the sea trade between that region and the Indus civilization. Two important sites in the north of the island belong to the 'Dilmun period': a walled town at Qala'at al-Bahrain and a complex temple building at Barbar. Among the finds of this period are circular steatite stamp 'Persian Gulf' seals, related to Indus Valley seals, but probably made locally.
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."
Balanovo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site in south-central Russia dating to the early 2nd millennium BC near several short-lived settlement sites confined largely to the main river valleys. The regional culture made Corded Ware. The cemeteries mainly used flat inhumation rites, including double burials and some rich graves with copper battle-axes. Corded beakers, stone battle-axes, and fired clay model wheels are characteristic finds.
Ban Chiang: SYNONYM: Ban Chiang Hian
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site in northeast Thailand with burial deposits from 3600 BC-1600 AD and which was occupied from c 4500 BC. Rice was grown and bronze cast according to the earliest records. Iron and rice paddy field cultivation began in the 2nd millennium. The basal burials are associated with incised and cord-marked pottery, copper and bronze artifacts. Levels dated to the late 2nd and 1st millennia BC have produced a variety of curvilinear painted red-on-buff pottery, together with iron, and bones of water buffalo. However, there is disagreement over the dating of Ban Chiang,, especially for the bronze, iron, and painted pottery.
Ban Don Ta Phet: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A burial site near U Thong, Thailand dating to c 400-200 BC with etched stone and beads from India and other evidence of long-range trade by sea and land routes. Local wares were iron tools and cast-bronze bowls.
Ban Kao: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A burial site in western Thailand which spanned 2500-1600 BC. There is elaborately shaped unpainted pottery with a range of bone, shell, and stone artifacts.
Barkaer: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of the final Early Neolithic (phase C, TRB culture) in northeast Jutland, Denmark. There was a cobbled street, two timber buildings (80 m long and divided into 26 single rooms) which were at first thought to be houses but may have been burial structures. Offerings in the pits below the buildings included amber beads, copper objects, and pottery.
barrel urn: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of large middle Bronze Age pot found within the overall repertoire of the Deverel-Rimbury ceramic tradition of southern Britain in the period 1500 BC through to 1200 BC. Usually over 60cm high, barrel urns have a distinctive profile, wider in the middle than at the base or the rim, often with applied cordons that are decorated with finger-tip impressions. Found on domestic sites where they were presumably used as storage vessels and as containers for cremations often found as secondary burials in earlier round barrows.
Batán Grande: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large architectural complexes of South America located in the Lambayeque valley of north coastal Peru. The site has more than 30 huge platform mounds with an estimated 750,000 burials -- most of them looted by treasure hunters who have taken immense quantities of gold, silver, copper, and bronze objects. Occupation at Batán Grande went from the Formative (Cupisnique) to the Inca period. The site was the capital of a powerful state between 850-1300 AD. With Batán Grande, Cerro de los Cementerios was a copper-processing area, linked to the Cerro Blanco mine by a prehistoric road. Excavations have revealed metal artifacts, smelting furnaces, grinding slabs, crushed slag, and pottery blowtubes.
Beaker people: SYNONYM: Beaker Folk, Beaker culture; Bell Beaker culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A widespread Late Neolithic European people of the third and second millennium BC named after the characteristic bell-shaped beakers found buried with their dead. These people spread a knowledge of metalworking in central and western Europe from c 2500-2000 BC. They first came to Britain between 1900-1800 BC in successive waves, via Holland, from the Rhineland. Their origins are uncertain, with theories of them being the Battle-Ax people from south Russia and Spanish Megalithic people from Almeria or from Portugal and Hungary. They were copper and bronze workers and famous for their great collective tombs. The assemblages of grave goods -- decorated pottery, fighting equipment (arrowheads, wristguards, daggers) -- were characteristic of the people, who lived in small groups mainly by major river routes as they were known traders. Burial was by contracted inhumation in a trench, or under a round barrow, or as a secondary burial in some form of chamber tomb. Each burial was accompanied by a beaker, presumably to hold drink, probably alcoholic, for the dead man's last journey.
Beidha: SYNONYM: Bayda', Al-, Beida
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in south-central Yemen near Petra that was first occupied in the Early Natufian and Aceramic Neolithic. It is situated on a high plateau and, until the unification of the two Yemen states in 1990, was part of North Yemen (San'a'), though it lay near the disputed frontier with South Yemen. At first it was a semi-permanent camp which lived off goat and ibex. Beidha was reoccupied c 7000 BC by a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A [PPNA} group, who lived in a planned community of roughly circular semi-subterranean houses. They domesticated goats and cultivated emmer, wheat, and barley. There was a succeeding PPNB phase in which the buildings changed to complexes of large rectangular rooms, each with small workshops attached and with plastered floors and walls. Burials without skulls were found and there was also a separate ritual area away from the village. Finds from the site include materials from great distances, including obsidian from Anatolia and cowries and mother-of-pearl from the Red Sea.
Benty Grange helmet: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An Anglo-Saxon ceremonial helmet found in 1848 at a burial site in Benty Grange. Unlike the Sutton Hoo helmet, which has similarities to Swedish helmets, the Benty Grange example was undoubtedly of native workmanship. It is an elaborate object combining the pagan boar symbol with Christian crosses on the nail heads.
Beowulf: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An heroic poem, considered the highest achievement of Old English literature and also the earliest European vernacular epic. Preserved in a single manuscript (Cotton Vitellius A XV) from c 1000 AD, it deals with events of the early 6th century and is believed to have been composed between 700 and 750. It did not appear in print until 1815. Beowulf is one of the earliest, longest and most complete examples of Anglo-Saxon verse. Although originally untitled, it was later named after the Scandinavian hero Beowulf. Its themes are essentially the conflict between good and evil and the nature of heroism; fantasy and reality are intertwined as the hero Beowulf fights Grendel and other semi-mythological monsters. There is no evidence of a historical Beowulf, but some characters, sites, and events in the poem can be historically verified. Perhaps Beowulf's greatest contribution to archaeology is the light the poem has shed on the funerary customs displayed in the Sutton Hoo ship burial. The opening passages describe how the dead King Scyld Scefing was borne out to sea in a ship; jewels were placed on his chest, armor and treasure heaped around his body, and a standard was hoisted overhead.
bier: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: The movable wooden framework or platform on which a corpse is laid, sometimes with grave goods, before burial. It is used to carry the body to the grave.
Boghazköy: SYNONYM: Boghaz Keui, ancient Hattusas, Bogazkoy, Boghaz Koy
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the Hittite capital of Hattusas, excavated by Hugo Winckler in the early 20th century and which yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from which much of Hittite history was reconstructed. The capital is on a rock citadel near the Halys River in central Turkey and the site had been occupied since the Chalcolithic times. In c 1500 BC, it became the citadel of Hattusas. As the Hittites' power grew, so did their capital, all within a massive defensive wall of stone and mudbrick. Six gateways were decorated with impressive monumental carved reliefs, showing a warrior, lions, and sphinxes. Four temples have been excavated within the walls, each grouped around an open porticoed court. Two buildings housed the archives with over 10,000 inscribed clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script and the Hittite language. A cemetery close to the city held large numbers of cremation burials, a surprisingly early occurrence of this rite. The city fell at the same time as the empire, c 1200 BC. Little is known of the Chalcolithic or Hittite Old Kingdom phases on the site; excavation has in the main concentrated on the monuments of the New Kingdom city.
Boian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Neolithic culture (c 7000-3500 BC, some say Middle Neolithic c 4200-3700 BC) in lower Danube valley of southern Romania and characterized by terrace-floodplain settlements, consisting at first of mud huts and later of fortified promontory settlements of small tells. The Boian phase was marked by the introduction of copper axes, the extension of agriculture, and the breeding of domestic animals. The distinctive Boian pottery was decorated by rippling, painting, and excised or incised linear designs with white paste. Intramural burial is most common, but occasional large inhumation cemeteries are known. By spreading northward into Transylvania and northeastward to Moldavia, the Boian culture gradually assimilated earlier cultures of those areas. Flourishing exchange networks are known to involve Prut Valley flint, Spondylus shells from the Black Sea, and copper.
Book of the Dead: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The modern name given to a collection of ancient Egyptian mortuary texts made up of spells or magic formulas, placed in tombs and believed to protect and aid the deceased in the hereafter. The collection, literally titled The Chapters of Coming-Forth-by-Day received its present name from Karl Richard Lepsius, German Egyptologist who published the first collection of the texts in 1842. It was probably compiled and re-edited during the 16th century BC, and over half of the collection is comprised of the Coffin Texts dating from c 2000 BC and the Pyramid Texts dating from c 2400 BC. The Book of the Dead had numerous authors, compilers, and sources. Scribes copied the texts on rolls of papyrus, often with illustrations, and sold them to individuals for use in burials. Many copies of the book have been found in Egyptian tombs, but none contains all of the approximately 200 chapters. The choice of spells varies from copy to copy.
Branc: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site in southeastern Czechoslovakia of the Early Bronze Age where the burials were differentiated according to sex and the orientation was reversed from contemporary sites. At Branc, 81 percent of females were on their left side and 61 percent of males on their right. These mostly simple rectangular pits, sometimes with a wooden lining, of 308 inhumation graves spanning 200-400 years of the early Unetician culture were also analyzed for their grave goods. Within the graves there was clear evidence of community differentiation, with some individuals having more elaborate grave goods than others (on the basis of the rarity of the raw materials used and the time needed to produce the goods). This suggests that there would be leading families, and that wealth and status would tend to be inherited (ascribed) and there is evidence that each member of the community was placed according to lineage, sex, and age.
Brno: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The traditional capital of Moravia in the southeastern Czech Republic, which was inhabited in prehistoric times according to archaeological evidence. Important sites surround and are in the town, including a burial covered in red ochre, mammoth tusks, and ornaments, which has proven to be one of the earliest Upper Palaeolithic burials known. Traces of Neanderthal man were found in a cave called Svéduv stul (Swedish Table") and a camping ground of the Cro-Magnon mammoth hunters (30 000 BC) was discovered at Dolní Vestonice 20 miles (30 km) south. There are also traces of Celts and other tribes and many Slav settlements from the 5th and 6th centuries."
Broadbeach: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A burial site along the coast south of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Excavations uncovered 200 burials over a span of 1300 years, with wide variations in burial practices, possibly related to age, sex and status. Red ochre was present in nearly all graves, while grave goods included bone, shell, and stone artifacts and tools.
Brzesc Kujawski: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large settlement site in central Poland of the Lengyel culture of the early 4th millennium BC. There were about 60 trapezoidal long houses, smaller areas of one or more house clusters, and a large inhumation cemetery with double graves, animal burials, and rich copper grave goods. There were four phases of occupation.
bucket urn: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of large middle Bronze Age pot found within the overall repertoire of the Deverel-Rimbury ceramic tradition of southern Britain in the period 1500 BC through to 1200 BC. Usually over 60cm high, bucket urns are shaped like modern buckets with straight slightly sloping sides, wider at the top than the bottom. They are fairly plain with occasional applied cordons decorated with finger-tip impressions. Found on domestic sites where they were presumably used as storage vessels and as containers for cremations they are often found as secondary burials in earlier round barrows.
Buni: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important early Indonesian port in west Java that was along the spice trade route in the first centuries AD. The burial site yielded crucibles, bronze items, and Indo-Roman rouletted ware.
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.
Byci Skála: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric cave site near Brno, Czechoslovakia, with artifacts and faunal remains of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and the Hallstatt (Early Iron Age). There are sidescrapers and burins, numerous bronze objects, inhumation burials and cremated bones. Several burials included wagons with iron tires, likely to have been high-status people.
cache: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A collection of similar items and/or ecofacts that are deliberately hidden for future use. Caches are often discovered in burials or in caves and usually consist of ceremonial and ritual objects or emergency food supplies.
Cahokia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The largest and most impressive town of the Middle Mississippi Culture, on the Illinois bank of the river near East St. Louis. Cahokia Mounds State Historic and World Heritage Site, the location of this large prehistoric Indian city, is to the northeast. It constituted probably the largest pre-Columbian (c AD 900-1300) community north of Mexico in the Mississippi floodplain. The scale of public works in the culture can be estimated from remains of the largest of the Mississippi earthworks, Monk's Mound near Cahokia, which measures 1,000 feet (300 m) long, 700 feet (200 m) wide, and 100 feet (30 m) high -- which is larger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The magnitude of such public works and the distribution of temples suggest a dominant religious cult and a series of priest-rulers who commanded the services of a large population and the establishment of artist-craftsman guilds. In addition to large-scale construction, there is evidence of long-distance trade, elaborate ceremonial activity, and possibly astronomical observation. There is evidence of around 10,000-38,000 inhabitants and a town of warehouses and workshops, residential housing arranged along a grid of streets, and open plazas and 100 manmade mounds (burial and platform types). One of the smaller mounds contained rich burials, including a corpse was wrapped in a robe sewn with more than 12,000 shell beads; caches of arrowheads, polished stone, and mica; and his retainers -- 6 men at his side and 53 women in a mass grave nearby. Artifacts include flint hoes, shell and limestone-tempered pottery, and engraved stone tablets sometimes etched with the motifs of the Southern Cult.
cairn: SYNONYM: barrow
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A pyramid of rough stones, raised for a memorial or mark of some kind, usually over a burial but also as a landmark or monument. A cairn could also indicate where something valuable was stored. In America, a cairn is a structure of rounded stones. The word is often used as a synonym for barrow in areas where burial mounds were normally of stone. In Scotland and Ireland, the custom was for friends to add a stone to the pile when they passed a cairn.
Caka: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Bronze Age urnfield cemetery in Slovakia with some high-status burials of bronze breastplate.
campo santo: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: In Spanish, holy field" or a cemetery or burial ground associated with a church."
Caso y Andrade, Alfonso (1896-1970): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Mexican archaeologist and government official who explored the early Oaxacan cultures and who excavated Tomb Seven at Monte Albán, the earliest-known North American necropolis. His discovery and analysis of the burial offerings at Tomb Seven proved that Monte Albán had been occupied by the Mixtec people after they had displaced the Zapotecs before the Spanish conquest. Caso found evidence of five major phases, dating back to the 8th century BC, and established a rough chronology through comparisons with other sites. Caso also deciphered the Mixtec Codices. He made important contributions to regional archaeology and to the interpretation of Mixtec manuscripts, Mexican calendars, and dynastic history in general. He held posts as head of the Department of Archaeology at the National Museum, director of the museum, and director of the National Institute for Indian Affairs.
Castelluccio: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age settlement and cemetery of rock-cut tombs near Syracuse, Sicily. Excavated by Orsi in 1891-1892, the cemetery contained several hundred tombs used for collective burial and one tomb had a carved facade and several were closed by slabs with carved double spirals. The characteristic pottery was a buff ware painted with black or green lines and designs. Pottery shapes included splay-necked cups and pedestaled bowls. There were also bossed bone plaques, showing connections with the Aegean world well before 2000 BC.
catacomb: CATEGORY: feature; structure
DEFINITION: A subterranean cemetery of galleries or passages with side niches (loculi) for tombs. Catacombs consisted of galleries, burial niches, and chambers cut into the rock and the walls and ceilings decorated with pagan and Christian motifs. The term was first applied to the subterranean cemetery under the Basilica of San Sebastiano (on the Appian Way near Rome), which was reputed to have been the temporary resting place of the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul in the last half of the 3rd century. By extension, the word came to refer to all the subterranean cemeteries around Rome, though they are widely known elsewhere, especially around the Mediterranean. Their subterranean nature is explained by the need for security and secrecy on the part of the Christian religion that was banned in many places.
Catacomb Grave culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The second in the Kurgan culture series, after Yamnaya and before Srubnaya, in southern Russia and Ukraine between the Dniepr and Volga rivers. It is dated between c 2000-1500 bc (Bronze Age). The graves are not true catacombs but rather burials in which the skeleton and grave goods are put in a side wall niche of a shallow shaft. The shaft is filled in and then covered with a barrow.
catafalque: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A decorated wooden platform upon which a sarcophagus was temporarily placed before burial. These ornate funereal structures were often mounted on a stage to support a coffin for a lying-in-state.
cave tomb: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A burial in a cave, a place of habitation and ritualistic practices such as cave art. The talus is the area just outside the cave.
Cayla de Mailhac: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southwestern France with a settlement and a series of cemeteries of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age c 700-100 BC. Occupation began with an urnfield culture. Iron became common in a second phase and a cart burial from La Redorte shows similarities to the Hallstatt Iron Age cultures. Phase III is dated to the second half of the 6th century BC by imports of Greek black figure ware and Etruscan pottery. The settlement of Phase IV was enclosed by a rampart and had houses of sun-dried brick. Datable material included Greek red figure pottery and fibula brooches of Hallstatt/early La Tène types. The last phase was of the La Tène culture.
Celts: SYNONYM: adj Celtic; Gaels; Goidels; Galatians; Gauls
CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: An important people of central and western Europe. Greek and Roman writers recorded them as having lived in the final centuries BC and their existence is first attested c 500 BC, but they were around long before that. They were a fierce, warrior race distinguished by three factors: their language, their beliefs, and their material culture. They are known to have invaded Italy and sacked Rome itself in the early 4th century bc, while in the following century groups of Celts invaded Greece, sacking Delphi, and others invaded Anatolia. Their language belonged to the Indo-European family and divided into two branches at an early date (2nd-3rd millennium BC), respectively represented by the Welsh and Irish Gaelic languages. Original homelands appear to have been on the western and central mainland of Europe: France, Germany, Bohemia, Austria, and Switzerland. By mid-1st millennium BC, they also lived in Iberia (Spain and Portugal), Britain, Ireland, Low Countries south of the Rhine delta, and Italy north of River Po. In Britain, they were defeated by the Romans in AD 43. Archaeologically, in central Europe there were aristocratic burials of the Hallstatt culture, often containing wagons or horses. Archaeological cultures do not necessarily coincide with ethnic or linguistic groups and it is preferable to use the cultural terms Hallstatt and La Tene when describing archaeological remains.
cemetery: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A place set apart for burial or entombment of the dead.
cenotaph: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Greek for empty tomb" the term describing a tomb built as a memorial for ceremonial purposes and never intended for the interment of a body. Greek writings indicate that the ancients erected many cenotaphs including one for the poet Euripides in Athens but none of these survive. The subsidiary pyramids of the 4th-6th Egyptian dynasties are probably cenotaphs. At the Abydos cenotaph chapels for private individuals are characteristic of the Middle Kingdom and there are royal cenotaph temples of the Middle and New Kingdoms. The term also refers to a monument raised to a Roman citizen who had been drowned at sea or who from any other cause failed to receive burial."
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.
chaltoon: SYNONYM: choltun, chultun
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A series of underground chambers found in areas of Mesoamerica that were used principally for storage. Shaped like bottles, they may also have been used as seat baths or burial chambers.
chamber tomb: SYNONYM: chambered tomb
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A prehistoric tomb, often megalithic in construction, that contained a large burial chamber. Such a vault was usually used for successive burials over a long period of time. The term is also used for a rock-cut tomb, especially the shaft-and-chamber tomb, with a similar burial rite. Chamber tombs were built in many parts of the world and at many different times. The European varieties were called court cairn, dolmen, entrance grave, gallery grave, giants' grave, hunebed, passage grave, portal dolmen, tholos, transepted gallery grave, and wedge-shaped gallery grave. Many were rectangular chambers cut into the side of a hill and approached by a long entrance passage (dromos), especially in the Aegean.
Chan Chan: SYNONYM: Chanchan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient pre-Inca city on the northern coast of Peru, the capital of the Chimú kingdom c 1200-1400 AD. The ruins cover nearly 14 square miles (36 square km) and are in good condition because there is no rain. The buildings were made of adobe brick and there are 10 walled citadels (quadrangles) each containing pyramidal temples, cemeteries, gardens, symmetrical rooms, and reservoirs. These quadrangles probably the living quarters, burial places, and warehouses of the aristocracy. Most of the city's population (40,000-200,000 total) lived outside of the quadrangles in modest quarters. The Chimú kingdom was the chief state in Peru before the establishment of the Inca empire and its economy was agricultural. The Chimús made produced fine textiles and gold, silver, and copper objects. Between 1465-1470, the Chimú came under Inca rule. It was one of the largest Pre-Columbian cities in Peru.
Chancelade: SYNONYM: Raymonden
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Magdalenian rock shelters in Dordogne, France, with hearths, harpoons, and mobiliary art. The ochre-covered burial of Chancelade man" found in 1888 was a Homo sapiens sapiens."
Chandoli: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern India occupied in the 2nd millennium BC. Ground stone axes, copper flat axes and antenna swords/daggers, and pottery of Malwa type have been found as well as urn burials.
Changsha: SYNONYM: Ch'ang-sha
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City and capital of Hunan province, China, where Neolithic sites have been investigated since 1955. Isolated finds hint at Shang and Western Zhou settlement in this area. Over a thousand Chu burials have been excavated, with the richest being the early 2nd century BC tombs at Mawangdui. Artifacts from the Chu capital at Jiang-ling are comparable in date and importance.
chariot: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A light vehicle of war, usually carrying two people, a warrior, and a driver. Examples have been found from the Uruk period in Mesopotamia and the chariot was on the standard of Ur. It first appeared in the Near East in the 17 century BC, associated with the immigrant peoples who became the Hyksos, Kassites, and Hurri. Its arrival in Egypt can be fairly reliably dated to the Second Intermediate Period (1650-1550 BC). The Aryans carried it to India, and in China it formed the core of the Shang army. The Mycenaeans introduced it to Europe, where it spread widely and rapidly. It revolutionized warfare by allowing warriors to be transferred rapidly from one part of a battlefield to another. It was mainly for aristocrats, which explains its popularity as a funeral offering. Burials of complete chariots with horses and charioteers have been excavated in Shang China (1200 BC), in Cyprus from the 7th century BC, and among the La Tène Celts. The earliest Celt chariot burials are in the Rhineland and eastern France with dates around 500 BC, and later burials are in east Yorkshire and Europe as far east as Hungary, Bulgaria, and southern Russia. The chariot was replaced by the mounted warrior or knight when horses of sufficient strength had been bred in the late and post-Roman periods.
chullpa: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A burial tower commonly found in the southern Peruvian Andes, especially around Lake Titicaca, just before and after the Inca conquest. They were cylindrical, rectangular, or square and made of stone or adobe. Cruder chullpas are associated with pottery derived from final Tiahuanaco styles, but chullpas made of dressed stone are often of Inca date.
Ciempozuelos: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Copper Age cemetery site near Madrid, Spain, which has given its name to a late variety of Spanish beaker of the 2nd millennium BC. Artifacts come mainly from pit tombs or cistburials. The Ciempozuelos beakers and other pottery are of high quality with a red or brown burnished slip and complex incised decoration. Most of the burials were flexed inhumations in cists.
cippus: SYNONYM: pl. cippi
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A small, low column or pillar of stone, usually rectangular or cylindrical and with moldings at the top and bottom instead of a capital and a base. Often inscribed, it is normally associated with burials or tombs and used as a landmark, memorial, or a sepulchral monument.
circle: CATEGORY: structure; feature
DEFINITION: A series of stones set up in a ring, the commonest prehistoric monuments of England, such as those at Avebury and Stonehenge. Most were of stone, though some were of wood or a combination of the two. They vary greatly in size, from a few feet in diameter, to those which are a 1/4-mile in diameter and huge monoliths of 60 tons. Some circles have monoliths in the center and some smaller circles have burials in the center.
Cishan: SYNONYM: Tz'u-shan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Neolithic millet-cultivating site in China. Features include pithouses, storage pits, and burials with artifacts including querns, ground-stone sickles, tripod vessels, and bone and stone fishing and hunting implements. Animal domestication is also attested to the site, dating to the early 6th millennium BC.
cist tomb or cist grave: SYNONYM: slab tomb, kist, stone chest
CATEGORY: structure; feature
DEFINITION: A prehistoric coffin containing either a body or ashes, usually made of stone or a hollowed-out tree, of Europe and Asia. The grave might be lined with stones and covered with slabs or enclosed on four sides by stone slabs standing upright and closed with a lid (dolmen). Cists were for one or several burials and could be totally or partly buried. Cist" has also been used in a more general sense to refer to the stone burial place itself. The term also referred to a storage place for sacred objects."
ciudadela: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Large rectangular enclosures (literally, 'citadels') found in Mesoamerica and thought to have been the dwellings of the ruling classes and their retainers. The enclosures, surrounded by tapering adobe walls, contained courts, storerooms, administrative structures, and platform burials. Some may have been the palaces of the Chimu kings; the number of recognizable ciudadelas agrees with the number (10) of known Chimú rulers. Ciudadelas have been found in the ancient Andean city of Chan Chan and it has even been suggested that they were the palaces of successive rulers, maintained by their descendants in the way that those of deceased Inca were maintained in Cuzco.
claw beaker: SYNONYM: elephant's trunk beaker, Rüsselbecher
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Elaborate glass beakers dating from c 500 AD onward in Early Saxon graves and Frankish burials. Also called Rüsselbecher, the beakers have two superimposed rows of hollow, trunklike protrusions curving down to rejoin the wall of the vessel above a small button foot. In form they are similar to free-standing conical beakers, but they are embellished by a series of unusual clawlike protrusions. In many cases the glass is tinted brown, blue, or yellow. The beakers were probably made in Cologne or Trier, Germany.
closed site: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: An archaeological site located within a pyramid, chambered tomb, barrow (burial mound), sealed cave, or rock shelter.
coffin: SYNONYM: sarcophagus
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any box or chest, usually rectangular or anthropoid in shape, in which a corpse or mummy is enclosed for burial. Clay, stone, metal, and wood are among the materials used. Primitive wooden coffins, formed of a tree trunk split down and hollowed out, are still in use among some aboriginal peoples. The term 'sarcophagus' is used only for the stone outer container which encases one or more coffins. From the Latin word for basket" 'cophinus'."
Coffin Texts: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A collection of ancient Egyptian funerary texts consisting of spells or magic formulas that are intended to aid the deceased in their passage to the hereafter. The text was painted on or in burial coffins from the First Intermediate period (c 2130-1939 BC) and the Middle Kingdom (1938-c 1600 BC). Many of the Coffin Texts were derived from the Pyramid Texts, a sequence of often-obscure spells carved on the internal walls of the Old Kingdom pyramids, but were used by private individuals. More than 1000 spells are known. The Coffin Texts combined with the Pyramid Texts were the primary sources of the Book of the Dead, which was in prominent use during the New Kingdom and Late period. These three collections represent the main body of Egyptian religious literature.
collared urn: CATEGORY: artifact; ceramics
DEFINITION: A type of urn used in the British Early Bronze Age, also called an 'overhanging rim urn'. It has a developed rim which may be straight, convex, or slightly concave in profile. Decoration is normally on the rim or the upper half of the vessel. Collared urns often contained cremation burials, though some have been found in domestic contexts.
collective tomb: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A chamber tomb of Neolithic times, either rock-cut or megalithic, built to contain many burials, often successive depositions spread over a long time. By 4000 BC the first big collective tombs were built from boulders in Spain.
columbarium: SYNONYM: pl. columbaria
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A term from Roman antiquity for a subterranean sepulcher with wall niches or pigeonholes for cinerary urns. The term was also used for the recesses themselves. This type of burial was typically afforded to the large staff of slaves and freedmen. . Originating as variants of traditional Etruscan and republican Roman house tombs, columbaria were usually rectangular brick structures built around an open court, the walls of which contained niches for the urns. Some columbaria were elaborate and held numerous inscriptions, stucco paintings, and mosaics which provide information about the lower classes. Some of the best examples of columbaria are those in the great necropolis beneath the Basilica of San Sebastiano in Rome. In Hadrian's time (117-138 AD) inhumation replaced cremation and columbaria became obsolete.
Columnata: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Atlas Mountains of northern Algeria with several Mechtoid-type human burials dated to 8300-7300 BP.
Combe Capelle: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter in Dordogne, France, with Châtelperronian, Aurignacian, Gravettian, and Solutrean industries as well as a burial of a Homo sapiens sapiens.
Combe-Grenal: SYNONYM: Combe Grenal
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter site on the Dordogne River in southwest France, near the town of Domme. There are 64 archaeological levels, including nine bottom levels of the Acheulian industry dating from the end of the Riss glaciation, followed by a series of 55 Mousterian levels. Occupation ended just before the end of the Mousterian period, and there is a radiocarbon date of just over 37,000 BC from Level 12, near the top of the deposit. The site has the largest number of cultural levels of any Palaeolithic site known to date. The 55 Mousterian levels have formed the basis for the analysis of the Mousterian into five main types. A burial pit has been recognized in the Mousterian levels with some human bones. The site has fauna and pollen evidence from all levels.
Conca d'Oro: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Copper Age site on the plain around Palermo, northwest Sicily, where a number of rock-cut shaft-and-chamber tombs (a forno or oven-shaped type) have been found dating to the 3rd millennium BC. They were used for collective burial and the associated grave goods include pottery vessels and some metal tools and weapons. There is local incised pottery and a local imitation known as the 'Carni beaker', as well as imported Beaker pottery of west Mediterranean type.
constructed feature: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A feature deliberately built to provide a setting for one or more activities, such as a house, storeroom, or burial chamber.
context: SYNONYM: archaeological context
CATEGORY: term; technique
DEFINITION: The time and space setting of an artifact, feature, or culture. The context of a find is its position on a site, its relationship through association with other artifacts, and its chronological position as revealed through stratigraphy. Certain features or artifacts may be normally associated with particular contexts, for example a pottery type may be found in the context of certain burials. If such an artifact is found out of context, it may suggest the previous presence of a burial, the robbery of a burial, or a place of manufacture of the pots that accompanied burials. An artifact's context usually consists of its immediate matrix (the material surrounding it e.g. gravel, clay, or sand), its provenience (horizontal and vertical position within the matrix), and its association with other artifacts (occurrence together with other archeological remains, usually in the same matrix). The assessment of context includes study of what has happened to the find since it was buried in the ground.
contextual seriation: SYNONYM: sequence dating
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A seriation technique, also called sequence dating, pioneered by Sir Flinders Petrie in the 19th century, in which artifacts are arranged according to the frequencies of their co-occurrence in specific contexts -- usually burials. This relative dating method, based on shared typological features, enabled Sir Flinders Petrie to establish the temporal order of a large number of Egyptian graves.
Corded Beaker culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic culture in central and northern Europe from c 2800 BC, named after a characteristic cord-marked decoration found on pottery. The Corded beaker culture belongs to the so-called Battle-Ax cultures of Europe. There were two phases of new burial rites, with individual rather than communal burials and an emphasis on burying rich grave goods with adult males. The first phase, characterized by Corded Ware pottery and stone battle-axes, is found particularly in central and northern Europe. The second phase, dated to 2500-2200 BC, is marked by Bell Beaker pottery and the frequent occurrence of copper daggers in the graves; it is found from Hungary to Britain and as far south as Italy, Spain, and North Africa. At the same time, there was an increase in the exchange of prestige goods such as amber, copper, and tools from particular rock sources.
corded ware: SYNONYM: Corded Ware
CATEGORY: ceramics; culture
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic pottery ware decorated with twisted cord ornament found over much of north and central Europe in the 2nd half of the 3rd millennium BC. The commonest shapes are the beaker and the globular amphora. The ware is always associated with primitive agriculture, the stone battle ax, and usually with single burial under a small barrow or kurgan. The ware may derive from Denmark, central Germany (Saxo-Thuringia), eastern Poland, or the Ukraine. The culture received its name from the characteristic pottery. Some groups also had metal artifacts. There is some evidence that Corded Ware people had domesticated horses and wheeled vehicles, and they are sometimes interpreted as nomadic groups -- possibly Indo-European speaking -- who spread across northern Europe from the east. Closely related are the Globular Amphora and Funnel Beaker cultures.
Cotofeni: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A late Eneolithic / Late Copper Age culture in the eastern Balkans, mainly in southern Rumania and dating to the 3rd millennium BC. The sites were small, short-lived settlements suggesting agriculture and fishing as well as movement for seasonal reasons. Most burial sites used inhumation rites, although cremation is found. Cotofeni sites have a rich pottery assemblage with handled mugs and pitchers with lentil-impressed decoration.
court cairn: SYNONYM: Clyde-Carlingford tomb
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A type of Neolithic (c 3500 BC) chamber tomb common in southwest Scotland and northern Ireland. Its features include an elongated rectangular or trapeze-shaped cairn with an unroofed semicircular forecourt at one end. The courtyard gives access to the burial chamber proper, which is normally a gallery with two or more chambers separated by jambs, or by a combination of jambs and sills. This basic form sometimes called a 'horned cairn' has many variants. In the 'lobster-claw' or 'full court', cairns the wings of the facade curve around until they almost meet at the front of the tomb to enclose a circular or oval forecourt. Sometimes a cairn contains more than one tomb or there are subsidiary chambers. Court cairns continued to be used until the end of the Neolithic period around 2200 BC. The later court cairns share many features with the Severn-Cotswold tombs of southwest Britain and with the transepted gallery graves near the river Loire.
cremation: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The practice of burning the dead. The practice of cremation on open fires was introduced to the Western world by the Greeks as early as 1000 BC. There is much variation in the disposal of the ashes, one distinctive practice being to place them in a cinerary urn for burial. Primary cremation is the burning of the deceased on a pyre in the grave. Secondary cremation is the practice of removing the remains of the deceased from the pyre to a grave. The cremation pit is a depression in which the remains of a cremation are buried.
cromlech: SYNONYM: dolmen
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A term used in Wales for any Megalithic tomb. In Britain, the term refers to a circle of upright stone of prehistoric times. The enclosure was formed by menhirs, huge stones planted in the ground in a circle or semicircle. These enclosures were consecrated places used as burial grounds. The former usage is now obsolete in archaeological literature but has persisted in Welsh folk usage.
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.
crypt: SYNONYM: crypta
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A vault or subterranean chamber, especially one beneath the main floor of a church or other building and used as a burial place. In the catacombs, it was a tomb in which a number of bodies were interred together. Early Christians called their catacombs crypts; and, when churches came to be erected over the tombs of saints and martyrs, subterranean chapels, known as crypts or confessiones, were built around the actual tomb. The most famous of these was St. Peter's, built over the circus of Nero, the site of St. Peter's martyrdom. By the time of Roman emperor Constantine the Great (306-337), the crypt was considered a normal part of a church building.
Cueva Morin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic cave site of northern Spain with seven Mousterian levels, a lower Perigordian layer dated to 36,350 bp, and Aurignacian levels with dwellings and burials. It was one of the first Spanish sites excavated by scientific methods.
cultural group: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A complex of regularly occurring associated artifacts, features, burial types, and house forms comprising a distinct identity.
culture: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: In a general sense, the whole way of life of man as a species. In a more specific usage, it is the learned behavior, social customs, ideas, and technology characteristic of a certain people or civilization at a particular time or over a period of time (such as Eskimo culture). In this sense, a culture is a group of people whose total activities define what they represent and are transmitted to others in the group by social (mainly linguistic) -- as opposed to genetic -- means. Culture includes the production of ideas, artifacts, and institutions. In a more restricted sense (as in the term 'blade culture') culture signifies the artifacts or tool- and implement-making tradition of a people or a stage of development. Similar or related assemblages found in several sites within a defined area during the same time period, considered to represent the activities of one specific group of people is a culture. Cultures are often named for a particular site or an artifact. The word 'culture' in archaeology means a collection of archaeologically observable data; it is defined as the regularly occurring assemblage of associated artifacts and practices, such as pottery, house-types, metalwork, and burial rites, and regarded in this sense as the physical expression of a particular social group. This usage is especially associated with Gordon Childe, who popularized this concept as a means of analyzing prehistoric material. Thus the Bandkeramik culture of Neolithic Europe is an hypothesized social group characterized by its use of a particular type of pottery, houses, etc. The term, in reference to the specific elements of material culture, is most often used in the Old World.
cup-and-ring mark: SYNONYM: cup mark, cup and ring mark
CATEGORY: artifact; lithics
DEFINITION: The commonest form of rock carving in the British Isles, consisting of a cup-like depression surrounded by one or more concentric grooves. Cup-and-ring marks are found on standing stones, singular or in stone circles, and on the slabs of burial cists, as well as on natural rock surfaces. In its classic form most cup-and-ring art belongs in the Bronze Age, but the motif occurs on passage graves, for example in the Clava tombs and on the capstones at Newgrange, where it may show links with similar rock carvings in northwest Spain. They are also found in Ireland and Scotland and can be dated to the Neolithic period of the 4th-3rd millennium BC.
cyst: SYNONYM: cist, cist grave
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A box-shaped burial structure made of stone slabs (especially slate, schist, or granite) set on edge. Cysts may be either sunk below ground level or built on the land surface, in which case they are covered by a protective barrow. The body, in a crouched position, was buried, or an urn, containing cremation ashes, and funerary furniture were placed and buried. The name comes from the Greek word 'kiste', meaning chest or box.
Dürrnberg bei Hallein: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age salt mining center in Austria from the 5th century BC. It eclipsed the mining complex at Hallstatt. There are many wealthy burials and artifacts linking the site with other part of central Europe and the Mediterranean.
Da But: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A marine shell midden near Thanh-hoa in northern Vietnam, which has produced a mixed Bacsonian and Neolithic stone industry together with ochre-stained burials and pottery. It has been dated to c 4000 BC.
Dadunzi: SYNONYM: Ta-tun-tzu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic site in Pei Xian, Jiangsu province, China, with three main levels named after the nearby sites of Qinlian'gang, Liulin, and Huating. The lowest (Qinglian'gang) level at Danunzi yielded a radiocarbon date of c 4500 BC. In the middle (Liulin) level, extraordinary painted pottery was found with the usual undecorated pots native to the local Qinglian'gang tradition. Both the shapes and the painted designs copy the Yangshao pottery of Miaodigou; radiocarbon dates suggest that the Liulin phase belongs in the 4th millennium BC. Some graves of the Liulin phase at Dadunzi contained sacrificed dogs. At Dawenkou in Shangdong, where the lower level belongs to the Huating phase, pigs appear instead, and the graves often take the form of a stepped pit -- significant as forerunners of characteristic Shang burial practices. Perforated tortoise shells from Liulin graves may likewise foreshadow tortoise plastrons in Shang oracle bones.
Dawenkou: SYNONYM: Ta-wen-k'ou
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A Middle Neolithic site in Shandong Province, China, which gave its name to a culture of c 4500-2700 BC. There is elaborately shaped pottery and increasingly rich burials.
deposition: SYNONYM: depositional process
CATEGORY: geology; term
DEFINITION: Any of the various processes by which artifacts move from active use to an archaeological context, such as loss, disposal, abandonment, burial, etc. It is the laying, placing, or throwing down of any material. In geology, it is the constructive process of accumulation into beds, veins, or irregular masses of any kind of loose, solid rock material by any kind of natural agent (wind, water, ice). The transformation of materials from a systemic to an archaeological context are directly responsible for the accumulation of archaeological sites and they constitute the dominant factor in forming the archaeological record. Deposition is the last stage of behavioral processes, in which artifacts are discarded.
Diaguita: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Indian peoples of South America, formerly inhabiting northwestern Argentina and the Chilean provinces of Atacama and Coquimbo. They are characterized by distinctive ceramic complexes. Two principal subgroups have been defined -- the Argentinian, on the eastern side of the Andes and the Chilean, on the western side -- which have some cultural traits in common: funerary practices, use of bronze, and probably language. The Calchaquí, the Argentinian subgroup, farmed terraced fields, built irrigation canals, and kept herds of llama. They did loom weaving of llama-wool textiles, which they dyed; basket making; and had a rather elaborate ceramic industry. Metallurgy was also known. Religious beliefs involved shamanistic practices for the cure of illness felt to be caused by witchcraft. Polychrome funerary urns were used for burial for children; adult burials were stone-lined pit inhumations. The Chilean Diaguita ceramics are, on the whole, smaller and more delicately decorated. Influence from the north (Tiahuanaco in the early stages and Inca later) is also apparent. Petroglyphs are common throughout the Diaguita area. The earliest date for Diaguita is c 900 AD and it continued till the Spanish Conquest.
Dian kingdom: SYNONYM: Tien
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age culture and barbarian kingdom in southwest China centered on Lake Dian in Yunnan province. According to Chinese sources, the Dian royal house traced its descent from a Chu general who invaded Yunnan in the late 4th century BC and remained to rule the local tribes. In 109 BC, Dian surrendered to Han armies; a generation later the kingdom was destroyed after a revolt. The highly distinctive culture is known mainly from cemetery sites, especially Shizhaishan where the burials date from the Han occupation. Earlier burials of the period c 600-300 BC have been excavated at Dapona and Wanjiaba. Many of the objects unearthed at Shizhaishan were imports from China: coins, mirrors, belt hooks, silk, crossbow mechanisms, and a gold seal from the Han court that reads 'Seal of the King of Dian'. Other finds seem to be local adaptations of prototypes originating in the state of Chu. There was active trade with the southern Zhou states of Shu and Ba before the Han Dynasty.
Diring: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic site in northeast Siberia with burials of the Ymyakhtakh culture and an assemblage of quartzite cores, pebble tools, and flakes.
Dissignac: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic burial mound in Loire-Atlantique, France, with two passage graves, microliths, Early Neolithic pottery, and a palaeosol with pollen of cultivated cereals dated to c 4000 BC.
Dnieper-Donets: SYNONYM: Dnepr-Donets
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A 3rd- and 2nd-millennium BC Late Neolithic culture of the Ukraine. Large numbers of small settlements are known with hunter-gatherer subsistence known. Large quantities of comb-pricked pots found but grave goods were rare except for copper rings and tooth necklaces. Extended inhumation was the norm; the physical type in these burials is identified as Cro-Magnon.
dogu: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of clay figurine, most often depicting a pregnant female, made in Japan during the Jomon period, c 5th-4th millennium to c 250 BC. The function of these figurines is unknown, but it is generally believed that they were some kind of fertility symbol and they are reminiscent of the rigidly frontal fertility figures produced by other prehistoric cultures. Archaeological evidence suggests they were aids in childbirth as well as fertility symbols. They are also found in simulated burials, indicating some kind of ceremonial function. Fired at a low temperature, they often have crumbly surfaces and many are painted red.
Doigahama: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Yayoi cemetery site in Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan. The remains of at least 200 men and women of various ages were found buried in pits, in extended or flexed position. Apart from personal ornaments of glass, stone and shell, the burials were sparsely furnished, unlike the Middle Yayoi burials, such as Sugus, in Kyushu. The body type is different from the Palaeoasiatic Jomon.
dolmen: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In antiquity (especially in France), a word for a megalithic tomb consisting of orthostats and capstone or for megalithic chamber tombs in general. This was usually a stone structure consisting of upright columns supporting a slab roof and known from Neolithic times. In English archaeological literature 'dolmen' should be used only for tombs whose original plan cannot be determined or for tombs of simple unspecialized types which do not fit into the passage grave or gallery grave categories; it is also used for relatively small, closed megalithic chambers, such as the dysser of Scandinavia. The name was probably derived from Cornish 'tolmen' (stone table). The word has a second meaning for the enclosure for burial in a jar of the Yayoi period in Japan consisting of a single large stone slab supported on a ring of stones. A third meaning is for a megalithic stone burial feature in western China and coast Yellow Sea area, dating to the 1st millennium BC, of which there are three forms -- raised table, low table, and unsupported capstone.
Domesday Book: CATEGORY: language; artifact
DEFINITION: A survey of land ownership in England after the Norman Conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes how in 1085 it was decided to make a record of the number of hides in land existing in each English shire and to establish the amount and value of acreage and livestock possessed by individual landowners. The idea was to create a new rating system which would protect and enlarge the king's revenue. The resulting document -- a two-volume survey of land ownership arranged under tenurial rather than territorial headings -- is the great testament of feudal England. Domesday Book is of fundamental importance to both historians and archaeologists of the Late Saxon and early Norman periods, as it gives the names and sizes of villages, farms, manors, churches, and other properties that existed at the time as well as certain sales and transactions.
Dong-son: SYNONYM: Dong Son
CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A classic Bronze Age site in north Vietnam and its culture, dating c 500 BC to 100 AD. It was preceded by the Go Bong (c 2000-1500 BC), Dong-Dau (c 1500-100 BC), and Go Mun (c 1000-500 BC) phases of the Vietnamese Bronze Age. The Dong-son culture thus overlaps the Chinese conquest of northern Vietnam in 111 BC. Characteristic are large incised cast-bronze drums, bronze situlae (buckets), bells, tools, and weapons from elaborate boat burials and assemblages in lacquered wood coffins. Dong-son drums of presumed Vietnamese manufacture were traded through wide areas of Southeast Asia and southern China to as far as New Guinea, and the Dong-son bronze-working tradition was by far the richest and most advanced ever to develop in Southeast Asia. Iron was used for tools. There is evidence for developing urbanism in defensive earthworks and wet rice cultivation. Major sites include Chao Can, Viet Khe, Lang Ca, and Co Loa.
dyss: SYNONYM: pl. dysser
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The Danish name for the earliest type of megalithic chamber tomb found in Scandinavia in the Early Neolithic. The oldest dysser are rectangular slab cysts roofed with capstones and containing 1-6 skeletons. The burial chamber is covered with a mound which rises to the height of the capstone and has a retaining kerb of stones. Drysser are associated with an early phase (C) of the TRB culture. Similar but less massive cysts were built by other TRB groups elsewhere in northern Europe.
Easter Island: SYNONYM: Rapa Nui
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The easternmost inhabited island of Polynesia, a small volcanic one, about 2500 miles from South America and 1250 miles from Pitcairn Island, its nearest inhabited Polynesian neighbors. It was settled by the Polynesians early in 1st millennium AD and developed a horticultural economy. By 700 AD, the inhabitants built large stone platforms (ahu), some of cut stone, and between 1000-1700 AD these platforms supported rows of huge stone statues (moai), some with separate top knots. Shaped by stone tools, as there is no metal on the island, from quarries in volcanic craters, there are about 300 platforms and about 600 statues. By about 1700, the warrior chiefdoms were fighting and all the statues were toppled from their pedestals. The platforms were used for human burial in stone chambers inserted into the stonework. There is a village of stone houses and many petroglyphs. The Europeans discovered Easter Island in 1722, after which the culture and population. The islanders also carved on wooden boards in an undeciphered script, Rongorongo. Easter Island culture represents the cultural development an isolated human community.
effigy mound: SYNONYM: Effigy mound culture
CATEGORY: feature; culture
DEFINITION: A Late Woodland culture in the upper Mississippi valley characterized by low but very long burial mounds, built mainly between c 700-800 AD. The largest effigy mound is located in southern Ohio and is in the form of an uncoiling snake holding an egg-shaped object in its mouth. Most effigy mounds have been found in the shape of birds and others in the shape of animals. Bundled, flexed and cremated burials are common, with certain locations within the life-form mounds being preferred (e.g. the head, heart, and hips). Grave goods, if they occur at all, are very simple. Although it is known that most of the effigy mounds are burial sites, some are not, and their significance remains a mystery. The Effigy Mound culture has been dated from AD 300 to the mid-1600s.
Egtved: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Bronze Age burial in east Jutland, Denmark in an oak tree trunk coffin under a circular tumulus. The cremated bones of a child were also in the coffin with a woman's body, clothing, and bronze ornaments preserved by waterlogged conditions. She was wearing a woolen jacket and skirt and was covered by an ox-hide shroud; bronze bracelets and a bronze belt disc also survived. The grave also contained a birch-bark box containing an awl and a hairnet.
El Oficio: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site of the Argaric Early Bronze Age in Almería, northeast Spain. The site was surrounded by a thick defensive wall and had rectangular stone houses. Several hundred burials were found, some under the floors of houses. Social class is very marked at El Oficio, where the richest women were adorned with silver diadems, while their male consorts had bronze swords, axes, and polished pottery.
El Paraiso: SYNONYM: Chuquitanta
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large ceremonial site in the Chillón Valley on the central coast of Peru,) dating to the Late Preceramic and Initial Period. It has a massive architectural complex of 6-7 mounds, courts, and rooms interconnected by corridors. Five to six building phases are evident in the constructions of fieldstone masonry laid in clay. No pottery or maize has been found, but twined and woven textiles are common in burials and domesticated beans and squash remains have also been recovered.
el-Lahun: SYNONYM: el-Kahun; al-Lahun; Kahun; Illahun
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Egyptian site at the entrance to the Faiyum, important in the Middle Kingdom (c 1938-1600 BC). There is the pyramid of Senwosret (Sesostris) II and the burial of Princess Sat-Hathor-Iunet with rich grave goods. The pyramid was unusual in that the entrance to the burial chamber was not on the north side of the pyramid but on the south. The pyramid was robbed in antiquity but a treasure of jewelry was discovered in the tombs of the princesses, located within the pyramid-enclosure wall. Technically and artistically, the collection rivals all other Middle Kingdom objects of its type. Hieratic papyri dealing with a variety of subjects have been recovered at the site.
Elmenteitan: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Pastoral Neolithic stone industry of early East Africa in a restricted area on the west side of the central Rift Valley in Kenya. Typical artifact assemblages include large double-edged obsidian blades, plain pottery bowls, and shallow stone vessels. Domestic cattle and small stock were herded. The dead were cremated, as at the mass-burial site at Njoro River Cave (c 1000 BC), one of the earliest Elmenteitan sites. The industry continued into the 1st millennium AD. The name also applies to the Pastoral Neolithic and Iron Age pottery tradition associated with the stone artifacts.
Emery, Walter Bryan (1903-1971): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British Egyptologist noted for his careful surveying and study of prospective sites. He discovered galleries of the Bucheum in Armant, burials of Nubian X-Group kings, queens and nobility of 4th-6th century AD, and at Saqqara, excavating many Archaic Period mastabas. His most important discovery was a row of 1st-Dynasty tombs attributable to kings or nobles. He excavated at Thebes-West Bank, Nubia's Buhen and Ballana and Qustul.
Ensérune: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Iron Age oppidum (promontory fort) in Hérault, southern France, first founded in the 6th century BC. It had defenses of Cyclopean masonry and well laid-out stone houses, both of which are very similar to those found on Greek settlements in the area. Large storage jars and silos excavated into the tufa were probably for grain or water. Nearby is a large cremation cemetery of the 3rd century with inurned burials. A major reconstruction took place in c 200 BC and then again in the 4th century.
Erligang phase: SYNONYM: Erh-li-kang
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stage of the early Bronze Age in North China seen in two strata at Zhengzhou Erligang, classified archaeologically as Middle Shang. The phase preceded the Anyang period (c 1300-1030 BC) and radiocarbon dates have been c 1600-1550 bc. The massive rammed-earth fortification, 118 feet wide at its base and enclosing an area of 1.2 square miles, would have taken 10,000 men more than 12 years to build. Also found were ritual bronzes, including four monumental tetrapods, palace foundations; workshops for bronze casting, pot making, and bone working; burials; and two inscribed fragments of oracle bones. The Erligang phase may correspond to the widest sway of the Shang empire and is known for its highly developed bronze-casting industry. Some Chinese archaeologists call the phase Early Shang.
Etruscan: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The people who occupied north central Italy (ancient Etruria, modern Tuscany) in the 1st millennium BC. They can first be recognized in the 8th century BC, distinguished from their predecessors the Villanovans by the wealth and oriental appearance of their tombs. They developed a high level of civilization very quickly, with extensive trade contacts with Greece and Carthage, and across the Alpine passes to central Europe. Their cities were large and rich: Populonia, Vetulonia, Tarquinia, and Caere (Cerveteri) near the coast, and Veii, Clusium (Chiusi) and Perusia (Perugia) inland. Etruscan influence spread widely, through Rome itself down to Campania in the south, and north to the Po valley and the civilization reached its height in the 6th century BC. Conflict with the Celts in the north and Rome in the south led to conquest by the latter, beginning with Veii in 396 BC and completed early in the 2nd century BC. The Etruscans' own writings, in an alphabet borrowed from the Greeks, can be transliterated, but little of their non-Indo-European language can be translated. Etruscan tombs show their genius; the finest are mounds covering a burial vault, as in the cemeteries of Tarquinia and Cerveteri. The vaults may be elaborately frescoed with scenes from life, mythology, or the rites associated with death. Also remarkable is a tomb at Cerveteri, the walls of which are covered with stucco reliefs of everyday objects. There is a high preponderance of imports, especially metalwork and Athenian pottery. Typical products of the Etruscans are decorated bronze mirrors, bucchero pottery, and sophisticated filigree jewelry. The influence of the Etruscans on Roman civilization was enormous. Rome is indebted to the Etruscans not only for its early kings, such as the notorious Tarquin, but virtually for the total infrastructure of its civilization. Roman culture is essentially the continuation of Etruscan under another name and language. Among areas of continuity are religion (e.g. Etruscan haruspex and Roman augury), political and social organization, strategic arts, architecture, art, drama, theater and civil engineering (notably hydraulics, such as aqueducts and drainage systems). The origin of the Etruscans has been a subject of debate since antiquity. Herodotus, for example, argued that the Etruscans descended from a people who invaded Etruria from Anatolia before 800 BC and established themselves over the native Iron Age inhabitants of the region, whereas Dionysius of Halicarnassus believed that the Etruscans were of local Italian origin.
Eynan (Ain Mallaha): SYNONYM: Ein Mallaha
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Natufian village beside Lake Huleh in northern Palestine. Excavations revealed three occupations starting with the 10th millennium bc. There were 50 semi-subterranean stone-lined circular huts, some with hearths and storage bins. Large storage pits and burials were outside the structures. Among the burials, one was more elaborately equipped and might have been a village headman. Eynan had a bone tool industry, bone and stone artwork, and stone vessels.
Füzesabony: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The third stage of the early Hungarian Bronze Age, named after the Tószeg Tell in Heves. The Füzesabony culture of the 21st-19th centuries BC is the Hungarian version of the Transylvanian/Rumanian Otomani culture. Most known settlements are unfortified tells with wattle-and-daub timber-framed houses, sometimes with plank and beam floors. There are large cemeteries, usually with inhumation burial. Notable finds are antler cheekpieces for horse bits.
feature: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A nonmoveable/nonportable element of an archaeological site. It is any separate archaeological unit that is not recorded as a structure, a layer, or an isolated artifact; a wall, hearth, storage pit, or burial area are examples of features. A feature carries evidence of human activity and it is any constituent of an archaeological site which is not classed as a find, layer, or structure.
Finglesham: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Saxon cemetery in Kent, used between the early 6th and mid-7th centuries. The large inhumation cemetery has produced an impressive collection of material including a pattern-welded sword, garnet-inlaid bird brooches made in Kent, radiate brooches from the continent, and a richly decorated square-headed brooch. Wooden boxes with bronze binding, strings of beads, corroded buckets, and bone objects of the period were also found. Some of the female burials seem to have been interred alive.
flat grave: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: Any burial consisting of a simple oval or rectangular pit containing an inhumed individual. The pit was infilled but not marked by a mound or other earthwork. The genuine Urnfield tradition was flat graves. In the Hallstatt, cremation was practiced in cemeteries of flat graves.
fluorine dating: SYNONYM: fluorine test
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A relative dating technique used on bone. Bone absorbs fluorine from groundwater at a rate proportional to the time since burial -- if groundwater migration rates remain constant. Fluorine concentrations are chemically analyzed by the gradual combination of fluorine in groundwater with the calcium phosphate of the buried bone material. Bones from the same stratigraphical context can be dated relatively by comparison of their fluorine content. The Piltdown forgery was finally exposed by this method.
Fontbouïsse: CATEGORY: site; artifact
DEFINITION: A Chalcolithic (Copper Age) settlement site in Gard, France, which has given its name to a style of pottery decorated with channeled decoration arranged usually in metopic or concentric semicircle patterns. Fontbouïsse ware is widespread in southern France, occurring in chamber bombs, village sites, burial caves, natural rock clefts, and small cremation cysts. It is also the name of a cultural group known for its dry-stone houses, megalithic tombs and caves used for burials, and is associated with extensive flint mining and the first evidence of copper working in the area.
formation process: SYNONYM: site formation process
CATEGORY: term; technique
DEFINITION: The total of the processes -- natural and cultural, individual and combined -- that affected the formation and development of the archaeological record. Natural formation processes refer to natural or environmental events which govern the burial and survival of the archaeological record. Cultural formation processes include the deliberate or accidental activities of humans. On a settlement site, for example, the nature of human occupation, the activities carried out, the pattern of breakage and loss of material, rubbish disposal, rebuilding, or re-use of the same area will all influence the surviving archaeological deposits. After the site's abandonment, it will be further affected by such factors as erosion, glaciation, later agriculture, the activities of plants and animals, as well as the natural processes of chemical action in the soil. Reconstruction of these processes helps to relate the observed evidence of an archaeological site to the human activity responsible for it.
Fort Ancient: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A series of cultures along the Ohio River and its tributaries, dating to 900-1600 AD. There was developed agriculture, platform and burial mounds, and palisaded houses with a Mississippian influence.
Franchthi Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric cave site on the Bay of Argos in the Peloponnese of Greece with dates to c 22,000-10,300 BP. An Epipalaeolithic occupation (c 10,000 BC) was succeeded after an interval by a Mesolithic (c 7500-6000 BC) with dozens of burials and some possible cremations. Excavations at the Franchthi Cave showed that boats already sailed to the island of Melos north of Crete for obsidian by about 13,000-11,000 BC and that the cultivation of hybrid grains, the domestication of animals, and organized community tuna hunts had already begun, marking the transition from hunting and gathering. A little later, the first pottery appeared. Late Upper Palaeolithic artifacts included small backed blades and geometric microliths.
gallery grave: SYNONYM: allée couverte
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A tunnel-shaped megalithic tomb of Europe, characterized by a rectangular chamber with no separate entrance passage. The structure therefore resembles a megalithic corridor under an elongated mound, though sometimes they are cut in the rock. Gallery graves are frequently but not always found under long barrows; they may be subdivided (segmented) or have additional side chambers (transepted). They are sometimes associated with elaborate facades and forecourts. Local variants are distributed in Catalonia, France, the British Isles, northwards as far as Sweden, as well as in Sardinia and south Italy. Most of the tombs were built during the Neolithic period from the early 4th millennium BC on and were still in use during the Copper Age when Beaker pottery was introduced; the Sardinian examples belong to the full Bronze Age. Many contain multiple burials.
Gandhara: SYNONYM: Gandhara grave culture complex
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A culture of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC in the valleys of northwestern Pakistan -- and the Achaemenid (Persian) satrapy of this name. This culture was important in passing Persian ideas on to the civilizations of the Ganges valley. It also introduced Hellenistic art styles to India. Western influence is also apparent in the grid town planning found at the Gandharan cities of Charsada and Taxila. Characteristic burials are in tombs consisting of two small chambers, one on top of the other; the lower chamber contained both the burial (inhumed or cremated) and the grave goods, while the upper chamber was empty. The population, which bred livestock and carried out agriculture, were accomplished metalworkers, producing tools, weapons, and ornaments of copper, bronze, gold, silver, and iron. The pottery within the grave goods was mostly a red or gray plain burnished type.
Gaocheng: SYNONYM: Kao-ch'eng
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Area in southern Hebei province, China, with widely scattered Shang remains. At Taixicun, the main occupation postdates the Erligang Phase and has one radiocarbon date of c 1500 BC. The site is dominated by three large rectangular Hangtu platforms and a large house foundation with sacrificial burials. Other graves yielded bronze ritual vessels, fragments of lacquer, and a bronze ax with a blade of meteoritic iron. Evidence suggests that it may be the location of a Shang capital occupied after Zhengzhou but before Anyang.
Gash: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of sites in the Atbara region of Sudan with a food-producing economy and human burials indicating a social hierarchy. The main site is Mahal Teglinos.
Ghassul: SYNONYM: Teleilat, Teleilat el Ghassul; Ghassulian
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Chalcolithic site northeast of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Valley with four major occupations indicated -- most notably the culture of the 4th millennium BC known from the sites of Teleilat Ghassul and Nahal Mishmar. The houses were of pisé (simple mud-brick on stone foundations) and had elaborate polychrome frescoes. A wide range of well-made pottery shapes were in use, which were found on many other Palestinian sites. Carbonized date and olive stones are among the earliest evidence for the cultivation of these fruits. Burials were in cists, made of stone slabs and covered by stone cairns. The culture exploited copper early on and was the last period of large-scale stone tool use in Palestine.
Giant's Grave: SYNONYM: Italian Tomba di Giganti
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Local name for the megalithic chamber tombs of the island of Sardinia during the mid-2nd millennium BC. The burial chamber is of gallery grave type, and is set in an elongated cairn with a retaining wall. The cairn covers a long burial chamber of Cyclopean construction with a corbelled roof. Some giants' tombs have curved or horned facades enclosing a forecourt. They belong to the Nuraghic Bronze Age culture.
Gilimanuk: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement and burial site in western Bali, Indonesia, of the early 1st millennium AD. There are extended burials, jar burials, and stone sarcophagi and burial goods including bronze, iron, and glass and stone beads of local and imported origin.
Giza: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the pyramid complexes of the Egyptian kings Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure on the west bank of the Nile opposite modern Cairo. It is most famous for the Great Pyramid of Khufu, two only slightly smaller pyramids, the Great Sphinx (statue of a human-headed lion) and its temple, and the tomb of Hetepheres, erected in the 4th Dynasty c 2600-2500 BC. The Great Pyramid is 481 feet (146.6 m) high and covers 13.1 acres. The earliest known monument is Mastaba V, which probably dates to the reign of the 1st Dynasty ruler Djet (c 2980 BC). The royal pyramid cemetery derived from earlier tomb types as seen at Saqqara. Elaborate measures were adopted to prevent disturbance of the royal burials, but all the pyramids were looted in antiquity.
Glasinac: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A mountain valley near Sarajevo in Bosnia where there are several thousand tumuli of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages (10th-1st centuries BC) containing more than 10,000 cremation burials. Inhumation was the dominant rite and some graves were very richly equipped. The metal and ceramic objects show connections with Greece, Italy, and the Danube valley.
globular amphora: SYNONYM: Globular Amphora culture
CATEGORY: ceramics; culture
DEFINITION: A type of pottery vessel which has given its name to a Late Neolithic or Copper Age culture of the 3rd millennium BC through much of Germany, Poland, and western Russia. The amphora itself is bulbous in shape with a narrow neck and small handles (for hanging) and appeared with the eastern wing of the European funnel-necked beaker culture differentiated from the western part. Some examples are undecorated, while others have incised, stamped or cord-impressed ornament on the upper part of the vessel. There are individual burials in stone cists under barrows, accompanies by the globular amphora. The culture is closely linked both TRB Culture and may be a parallel development to the Single Grave/Corded Ware group in Scandinavia of 2600-2200 bc.
Gnedovo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site outside Smolensk on the River Volga, where excavations have revealed one of the largest Viking Age gravefields of Russia. Most of the grave mounds contained cremations associated with oval brooches and other objects dating from the 9th and 10th centuries. The burial area itself seems to be associated with a very large Baltic trading center.
Gogoshiis Qabe: SYNONYM: Gure Makeke
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter of southern Somaia with Middle and Later Stone Age sequences and early Holocene burials. These graves, associated with lesser kudu horn cores, represent the earliest evidence of intentional grave goods in East Africa.
Golasecca: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Iron Age culture whose type site is a cemetery in Lombardy, Italy. Occupied from the 9th century BC to the 3rd century BC, it is an urnfield cemetery with some burials accompanied by wheeled vehicles. Some contain rich grave goods of metal, showing connections both with the Hallstatt Iron Age culture of central Europe and with the Etruscans in central Italy.
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.
grave goods: SYNONYM: grave-goods
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Valuables deposited with a corpse in a grave; the artifacts associated with a burial or cremation, usually meant to be helpful in the afterlife (such as jewelry, weapons, or food). They may also represent personal possessions or offerings to the dead person's spirit.
Great Serpent Mound: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large ritual earth mound in Ohio with the form of a curved serpent holding either an egg or a frog. The mound is associated with a nearby burial mound of the Adena culture.
Great Tombs period: SYNONYM: Kofun
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period in Japanese history, 4th-7th century AD, known for round tombs covered by a mound with a square platform off to the side, making a keyhole shape. Towards end of period, tombs were very large and surrounded by a moat, and earthenware figures and models (Haniwa) were placed in a series of concentric rings around the tomb. Inside was a chamber of stone slabs, probably adopted from cist tomb of northeast Asia. Burial goods included bronze mirrors, Chinese-type swords, magatama (fine polished stone ornaments), and Sue Ware pottery.
Grimaldi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the Italian Riviera near the French border with caves and rock shelters of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic flint industries, mainly Aurignacian and Gravettian assemblages (also termed Grimaldian industries). The caves also have elaborate Homo sapiens sapiens burials with grave goods including Venus figurines, backed blades, and objects of adornment. The Grotte du Prince yielded a pure Mousterian deposit. There is no Magdalenian in Liguria, where the Grimaldian persists until the end of the Palaeolithic period.
Grotte des Enfants: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic cave of the Grimaldi complex with three Cro-Magnon burials.
Gua Cha: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large limestone rock shelter in central Malaysia, occupied from c 10,000/8000 BC and 1000 AD. The lowest level is Hoabinhian, spanning 8000-1000 BC with burials. Neolithic burials with southern Thai / Ban Kao pottery affinities span c 1000 BC-1000 AD. Stone tools span the transition. A similar sequence is found at Kota Tongkat and Gua Cha's Neolithic sequence relates to the ancestry of the present orang asli (Austro-Asiatic-speaking aborigines) of central Malaya.
Hadra ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A kind of Hellenistic pottery first found in the Hadra cemetery at Alexandria. It was a burial container inscribed with the name of the deceased and often the date painted or incised on the shoulder.
Hafit: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A mountain ridge in southeast Arabia with a number of Jemdet Nasr-type pottery in cairns. There are other Mesopotamian ceramics and local materials in the early-3rd millennium BC burials. It is evidence of Mesopotamian contact with ancient Magan culture and provide the name for the earliest Bronze Age cultural period in the area.
Haftavan Tepe: SYNONYM: Haft Tepe
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in northwest Iran occupied off and on from the Early Bronze Age to the Sassanian period. The earliest occupation is dated to the 6th millennium BC, but its most important material comes from the Elamite period of the 15th-13th centuries BC. A royal tomb of c 1500 BC containing 21 skeletons, some covered in red ochre, is an early example of a vaulted tomb. This tomb was connected by a stairway to the main temple which contained many simple burials, some in urns. Fragments of inscribed stelae in cuneiform in the 14th-century BC Elamite language have provided details of the temple economy. In the 8th century BC, the mound became an Urartian citadel with an attached lower town. It was destroyed either by Sargon II in 714 BC or by the Cimmerians. The site was reoccupied in the Sassanian period: a town wall and numerous graves of this period are known.
Hafun / Hafun Point: SYNONYM: 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."
Haguenau: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age and Iron Age cemetery of burial mounds in Bas-Rhin, France. The richest mounds date to c 1500-1350 BC when the area was under the influence of the Tumulus culture of southern Germany. There were heavy palstaves and pottery with geometric excised decoration.
Hal Saflieni: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large rock-cut hypogeum on Malta, which was constructed by the same population that built the Maltese temples, and is a complex of many small rock-cut chambers, on three different levels, linked by a series of halls, passages, and stairways. Many of the chambers are elaborately decorated, often with carved features imitating wooden structures such as beams and lintels; other chambers have painted decoration, usually on the ceilings. Most of the chambers had been used for burial and it has been calculated that some 7000 individuals were buried in the whole hypogeum, over a period of some centuries. The hypogeum may also have been used as a temple as some places without burials were set aside for ritual. Artifacts include highly decorated pottery and a series of female figurines. The earliest chambers date to the 5th millennium BC.
Hallstatt: SYNONYM: Hallstatt period
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A site on Lake Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps with a cemetery of over 3000 cremation and inhumation graves with great quantities of local and imported grave goods. There were prehistoric salt mines in the area. Hallstatt is also a late Bronze age and early Iron Age cultural tradition, c 1200-6000 BC in continental temperate Europe. The term also refers to a cultural period of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in central Europe, divided into four phases, Hallstatt A, B, C, and D. In central European archaeology the terms Hallstatt A (12th and 11th centuries BC) and Hallstatt B (10th-8th centuries BC) are used as a chronological framework for the urnfield cultures of the Late Bronze Age. The first iron objects north of the Alps appear at the close of this period, and the Iron Age proper begins with the Hallstatt C (or I) stage of the 7th century BC. The area of fullest development is Bohemia, upper Austria and Bavaria, where hillforts were constructed and the dead were sometimes interred on or with a four-wheeled wagon, covered by a mortuary house below a barrow. Sheet bronze was still used for armor, vessels, and decorative metalwork, but the characteristic weapon was a long iron sword (or bronze copy). These swords are found as far afield as southeast England, in the so-called 'Iron Age A' cultures. During the Hallstatt D (or II) period, in the 6th century, the most advanced cultures are found further west, in Burgundy, Switzerland, and the Rhineland. Wagon burials are still prominent and trade brought luxury objects from the Greek and Etruscan cities around the Mediterranean. By the close of this period in the mid-5th century BC, elements of Hallstatt culture are found from southern France to Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The Hallstatt precedes the La Tène period; the Hallstatt Iron Age culture certainly developed out of the Urnfield Bronze Age groups.
Handan: SYNONYM: Han-tan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of the Eastern Chou (Zhou) state of Chao from 386-228 BC. The area was already settled in Shang times (c 1766-1122 BC) and first mentioned in about 500 BC, but became a center of trade and famed for luxury and elegance as the capital. In 228 it was attacked and taken by the armies of the Ch'in dynasty (221-206 BC) and became a commandery. Under the Han (206 BC-220 AD) it became the seat of an important feudal kingdom, Chao-kuo. The remains of the walls and foundations of buildings of both the Chao capital and the Han city still remain to the southwest of the modern city. A cemetery north of the walled city contained six chariot burials and 12 rich tombs, five with human sacrifices.
Harappa: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: One of the twin capitals of the Indus Civilization, located in Pakistan and northwest India, c 2300-1750 BC. Excavation has revealed a pre-Indus occupation related to that of Kot Diji and perhaps the Zhob Valley. There was a brick-walled town with pre-Harappan material, rare Indus inhumation cemetery, granaries, and cemetery of dismembered burials with non-Indus pottery, dating from reoccupation, possibly by Aryans. Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are remarkable for their town planning and public and private systems of hygiene and sanitation. Unfortunately the site was largely destroyed during the last century by the extraction of bricks for ballast for the Lahore-Multan railway, then under construction.
Hatvan: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The type site, northeast of Budapest, Hungary, of the second stage of the Hungarian Early Bonze Age (which is defined by Tószeg). The Hatvan culture occurred between the Nagyrév culture and the Füzesabony, c early 2nd millennium bc. Many of the sites are tells in the Great Hungarian plain, although enclosed hilltop sites are known in the Carpathian foothills. Cremation burials in pits were frequent. Hatvan settlements commonly produce large numbers of fired clay zoomorphic figurines and vases, as well as model cartwheels.
henge: SYNONYM: 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).
Heuneburg, The: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Iron Age fortified site and hillfort of the Hallstatt period on the upper Danube in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The site was the center of the dominant Celtic chiefdom in southwest Germany c 600-500 BC. Wine amphorae and Attic Black-Figure pottery were imported from the Greek city of Massalia, demonstrating Heuneburg's wealth. There are nearby princely burials of the same date, including the rich Hohmichele tumulus. This covered a timber mortuary house containing the body of an archer accompanied by a wooden wagon and precious offerings. The site has five main building phases, the most remarkable of which was the second, when the traditional timber-framed construction was replaced by a Greek type of construction, with a bastioned wall built of mud-brick on stone foundations.
Hili: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A number of small settlement sites in southeastern Arabia. Hili 8 provided the architectural and ceramic sequence for the Bronze Age of the region, c 3000-1800 BC. The occurrence of domesticated sorghum is among the earliest known. Burials, ceramics, and stone vessels have been excavated.
Hissar, Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site near Damghan in northern Iran, occupied from the 5th to the early 2nd millennium BC. Before 2500 BC, earlier than elsewhere in Iran, the painted pottery tradition was replaced by one of gray monochrome ware. This is usually held to mark the first movement of Indo-European speaking peoples from central Asia into Iran. The settlement was destroyed somewhere between c 1900-1600 BC. Evidence from the later 4th-early 3rd millennia BC suggests Proto-Elamite phenomenon manifested in pottery, seals, and tablet blanks. There are more than 1600 prehistoric burials and a Sassanian palace on the site, which has an interesting pottery sequence and metal objects.
Hochdorf: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age tumulus in Baden-Würtetemberg, Germany, from the 6th century BC (late Hallstatt). One burial chamber had very rich grave goods, including Mediterranean materials, a Greek bronze cauldron, gold-covered shoes, and bronze couch.
Hohmichele, the: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rich Hallstatt grave near the Heuneburg hillfort on the Danube in southern Germany. The barrow was one of the satellite graves around the hillfort and covered a central grave and 12 secondary burials of the 6th century BC Iron Age. The central grave was robbed in antiquity, but it had been an inhumation grave within a wood-lined chamber, which acted as the display area for the wealth of the deceased. The walls seem to have been draped in textiles with thin gold bands, and the deceased, dressed in finery including silk, was placed on a bed next to a four-wheeled wagon. It is the earliest documented occurrence of silk in Europe. The objects implied wine-drinking ceremonies and there is furniture directly imported from the south (central Europe).
hokei shukobo: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Burial precincts of the Yayoi and Kufun periods of Japan. There are coffin and pit burials of adults and jar burials of children.
Hopewell: SYNONYM: 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."
horizontal stratigraphy: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Chronological sequences based on successive horizontal displacements, such as sequential beach terraces. Stratigraphy is by definition obtained from superposed deposits, but other circumstances can be treated in the same way. For example, the oldest burials are likely to be those nearest the settlement, the top of a hill, or some other favored position. The later ones will be progressively further out as the cemetery expands. The concept can be a helpful tool in the interpretation of a site.
hunebed: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The Dutch name (literally 'Hun's grave') for a local variety of megalithic chamber tombs in the northern Netherlands and northern Germany. The tombs are built of large stones and consist of a round or oval mound surrounded by a kerb and covering a rectangular burial chamber with its entrance on one of the long sides. A few examples have an entrance passage, giving them a T plan which suggests an association with the passage graves of Denmark. The Danish tombs are slightly later than the oldest Dutch ones, but in both places they were built by the TRB culture during the Neolithic in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC.
Hyrax Hill: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site located on Lake Nakuru in central Kenya with Later Stone Age material and a pastoral Neolithic settlement. The earlier settlement is attributed to the East African Pastoral Neolithic complex. The second phase is of the Iron Age, and includes a series of so-called Sirikwa Holes which are interpreted as semi-subterranean cattle pens constructed by Nilotic-speaking peoples. There is also a cemetery of stone-covered flexed burials.
Ibero-Maurusian: SYNONYM: Iberomaurusian; Mouillian; Oranian
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stone tool culture characterized by small backed bladelets and found across the North African coast from at least 22,000-10,000 years ago (the late Würm (last) glacial period). It followed the Aterian in the Epipalaeolithic of Maghreb in North Africa and preceded the Capsian. The culture was related to Cro-Magnon, a group of people known as the Mechta-el-Arbi race, living along the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Morocco and also Libya. Linked to the sea, there are huge shell mounds of mussels, oysters, and arca. Associated with these are pottery and limited stone tool industry, in conjunction with hearths, sometimes still marked by supporting stones. Extensive cemeteries have been investigated, as at Taforalt, and also at Afalou bou Rhummel and Columnata in Algeria. Burials were sometimes decorated with ochre or accompanied by food remains or by horns of wild cattle. The industry does bear a close resemblance to the late Magdalenian culture in Spain, which is broadly contemporary (c 15,000 BC). There is evidence suggesting that the Ibero-Maurusian industry is derived from a Nile River valley culture known as Halfan, which dates from c 17,000 BC.
Igbo Ikwu: SYNONYM: Igbo Ukwu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southeast Nigeria dating to the 9th century AD with rich Iron Age deposits and bronze objects. It has yielded remarkable evidence for artistic and technological development and accumulation of wealth in that part of West Africa during the closing centuries of the 1st millennium AD. A corpse was interred in a deep pit, sitting on a stool surrounded by extensive regalia; the burial chamber was then roofed over and the bodies of attendants were placed above it. Further offerings were deposited nearby, most notably the delicate and intricate cire perdue bronze castings of vases, bowls, and items of personal adornment. Domestic pottery and enormous numbers of glass beads were also in the deposits.
incense cup: SYNONYM: pygmy vessel
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small subsidiary vessel found with Middle Bronze Age burials and placed beside food vessels or urns in southern England. It is found with the skeleton or cinerary urn in the barrows of the Wessex culture, c 1700 BC. The name is an archaeological label only, arising from the holes some of these vessels have through their walls, as their use is actually unknown.
Indian Knoll: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A shell mound site in Kentucky with over 1100 burials, many with exotic grave goods. This Archaic midden is dated c 4000-2000 BC.
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.
Irish bowl: SYNONYM: Irish food vessel
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of early Bronze Age ceramic vessel found in Ireland and the west of Scotland, mainly accompanying inhumation burials. These vessels have a small flat base, and a biconical form to the body with elaborated and sometimes perforated lugs on the carination, and an internally beveled rim. The upper part of the body, neck, and rim is usually decorated with impressed cord or other motifs. The bowls date to the early 2nd millennium BC.
Iwo Eleru: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter in the forest zone of southwestern Nigeria which has yielded the longest dated sequence of microlithic artifacts found in West Africa. Occupation was established by 12,000 years ago and the chipped stone industry continued for as long as 8000 years with only minor changes. From the lowest horizon a human burial, described as showing Negroid physical features, was recovered and it is the oldest Nigerian skeleton yet uncovered. In about the mid-4th millennium ground stone artifacts and pottery came into use. There is some evidence for the beginning of agriculture around that time.
Iximché: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Maya site in Guatemala of the Post-Classic period. A burial, dating to less than 100 years before the Spanish conquest (when it was the capital of the Cakchiquel Maya), has the largest cache of gold items found in the Maya area.
Jaina: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island north of Campeche, Yucatan, in the Gulf of Mexico, which was an important Late Classic Maya necropolis. It is known for its high-quality portrait ceramic figurines. There are two minor ceremonial centers at Zayosal and El Zacpool, built of uncut stone and stucco. Burials are commonly flexed, wrapped, and sprinkled with cinnabar; a jade bead was commonly put in the mouth to serve as currency in the next world. Some cremations and urn burials also occur.
Janislawice: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Type site of the Janislawice culture, a late Mesolithic people inhabiting east-central Europe, in central Poland. There is a Mesolithic burial, dated to the Atlantic climatic period of c 6000-4000 BC, with grave goods.
Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The third president of the United States and considered by many to be the father of American archaeology because of his meticulous excavation of a Virginia burial mound. Jefferson was the first person, in North America or anywhere, to undertake (1784) excavations of a prehistoric site as a means to understanding the people who built it. He wanted to find out why the burial mounds on his land had been built. One mound he excavated carefully with trenches, noting that in a number of levels that skeletons had been placed in the ground and covered -- producing a mound 12 ft (4 m) high. In observing the different levels, he was anticipating the stratigraphical method which became common practice in Europe and America only at the end of the 19th century. Worsaae's work in Denmark came a half a century later and the wider adoption of stratigraphical excavation methods was 100 years later.
Jellinge: SYNONYM: Jelling
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in East Jutland, in Denmark, which seems to be the remains of a 10th-century royal palace and important burial ground. Among the groups of remarkable monuments are the two largest barrows in that country. The barrows are traditionally held to be that of Viking king Gorm (d. c 950 AD) and Thyra, his queen. In the cemetery area stand fifty bauta stones forming a boat-shaped outline and two fine rune stones outlining the exploits and Christian conversion of Gorm and Harald Bluetooth. One of the stones depicts the oldest crucifixion scene in Denmark and on the other is a magnificent lion -- inspiring the term Jellinge Style.
Jiangling: SYNONYM: Chiang-ling
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A county seat of the Ch'in dynasty (221-206 BC) in third century BC China. Western Chou, Eastern Zhou, and Han remains as well as burials containing painted lacquers are of interest. Chiang-ling was also a center of a handicraft-textile industry, which was developed on a large scale by the Ch'ing dynasty in the 18th century, Chiang-ling satins being especially famous.
Jomon: SYNONYM: Jomon Period
CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: The earliest major postglacial culture of hunting and gathering in Japan, 10,000-300 BC, divided into six phases. This early culture, its relics surviving in shell mounds of kitchen midden type around the coasts of the Japanese islands, had pottery but no metal. The pottery was heavy but elaborate, especially in the modeling of its castellated rims. The term Jomon means 'cord marked', indicating the characteristic decoration of the pottery with cord-pattern impressions or reliefs. One of the earliest dates in the world for pottery making has been established as c 12,700 BC in Fukin Cave, Kyshu. Other artifacts, of stone and bone, were simple. Light huts, round or rectangular, have been identified. Burials were by inhumation, crouched or extended. The Jomon was succeeded by the Yayoi period. There are over 10,000 Jomon sites divided into the six phases: Incipient (10,000-7500 BC), Earliest (7500-5000 BC), Early (5000-3500 BC), Middle (3500-2500/2000 BC), Late (2500/2000-1000 BC), and Final (1000-300 BC). Widespread trading networks and ritual development took place in the Middle Jomon. Rice agriculture was adopted during the last millennium BC. The origins of Jomon culture remain uncertain, although similarities with early cultures of northeast Asia and even America are often cited.
Kültepe: SYNONYM: ancient Kanesh
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in Cappadocia, central Turkey (Anatolia), a center of Assyrian merchant colony, or karum, of Kanesh (Kanish). It was a Bronze Age city at which a colony of Assyrian merchants set up the trading organization, the karum, to control and foster the trade, especially of metals, between Anatolia and Mesopotamia. It is the best-documented of these sites, with correspondence written in Assyrian cuneiform on clay tablets and constituting the oldest surviving records from Turkey. Nearly 15,000 cuneiform tablets, known as Cappadocian" relating day-to-day activities and business transactions. Supplemented by the evidence from the houses and burials revealed by excavation it throws invaluable light on the country immediately before the rise of the Hittites. The karum was destroyed by fire in the early 1st millennium BC and the trading colony ceased to exist. Excavations in the karum have revealed houses separated by streets and alleys and workshops which suggest that it was also important as an industrial center for metalworking. The associated city had a double fortification and enclosed a palace complex and other public buildings including temples."
Kachemak stage: SYNONYM: Kachemak culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A marine mammal-hunting culture found around the Kachemak Bay of the southern Kenai Peninsula in central southern Alaska. It is divided into three phases, the oldest of which may date back as far as the 8th century BC and the most recent lasting until historic times. The first phase was the most distinctly Eskimo in character. Stone (including slate) implements in the early period were usually retouched; later they were ground. Round or oval stone lamps and realistic human figures of carved stone have been found. Copper tools and pottery appeared in the third stage. Rock paintings were mainly representations of men and animals. Burials have the body in a crouched position, with associated grave goods. During the final stage, artificial bone or ivory eyes were placed over those of the deceased. There may have been cultural connections with eastern Asia, with adjacent land areas, and with Kodiak Island.
Kadero: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important Khartoum Neolithic site on the edge of the old Nile flood plain which has lent information on the early development of food production in the central Sudan. Kadero was an extensive village inhabited during the second half of the 4th millennium BC. Herding was mainly of cattle, with some sheep and goats. There were many grindstones, and grain impressions on the pottery indicate the presence of wild panicum, sorghum, and finger millet. Burials included stone mace heads, palettes, carnelian bead necklaces, ivory bracelets, pottery, and ochre.
Kalanay: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site on Masbate Island in the central Philippines, which has produced incised and impressed pottery of a type found widely in Southeast Asia and South Vietnam from c 500/400 BC to 1500 AD. Kalanay is one of the type sites for the 'Sa-Huynh-Kalanay' pottery complex (Sa-Huynh of coastal Vietnam). There are metal period jar burials from the late 1st millennium BC or later.
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.
Kaminaljuyú: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large and important Maya site near Guatemala City that originally contained over 200 mounds, strongly influenced by Teotihuacán during the Early Classic. As the greatest of the early centers in the highland Maya zone, Kaminaljuyú has a history of occupation dating back to c 1800 BC, but it reached its first climax during the Miraflores phase in the centuries after 300 BC. Its earliest occupation during the Early to Mid-Pre-Classic has Olmec-influenced artifacts such as the 'squashed frog' motif, kaolin pottery, and pits reminiscent of those at Tlatilco. About 200 burial sites from the Late Formative Period, 300 BC-100 AD, have been uncovered, and there are carved stelae in the Izapa manner and a hieroglyphic script unlike that of the lowland Maya.. There are also courts for playing the ball game tlachtli. Because of the lack of stone suitable for construction, pyramids and other structures at Kaminaljuyú were built of adobe and later of other perishable materials. After a period of decline, the site was revived in c 400 when it became an outpost of the Teotihuacán civilization. Kaminaljuyú controlled the obsidian production along the Pacific. Its decline took place after the Late Classic Period c 600-900 AD. Evidence suggests that various Mexican dynasties ruled over the Maya population until the Spanish conquest.
Kampong Sungei Lang: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site near Klang, Malaysia, with a metal age boat burial dated to c 300 BC. The grave goods include two Dong Son bronze drums, Mutisalah beads, and iron implements. It may be contemporary with the Bernam-Sungkai slab graves.
Kaya: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A confederation of polities (tribal league) on the southern Korean coast formed before the 3rd century AD. The Kaya confederation developed trade largely by sea with the Chinese capital at Lo-yang and with Wae, Japan. The people of Kaya are thought to have been closely related to the tribes that crossed over from Korea to Japan a century or two before this period, and Kaya frequently sought aid from the Japanese in its feuds with its larger Korean neighbors (Silla, Paekche). There are cist burials or mounded tombs containing multiple cist burials. Artifacts include gray stoneware, the first made in Korea, which preceded the Sue ware of Japan. The Kaya people invented a unique musical instrument, the kayagum. Silla subjugated the confederation between the years of 532-562.
Kazanlik: SYNONYM: Kazanluk
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large Neolithic, Copper Age (Eneolithic), and Early Bronze Age tell in the Valley of Roses, southern Bulgaria. The stratigraphy includes a Karanovo I occupation; Veselinovo occupation levels; Karanovo V-VI layers (with a stone wall enclosing the site at the end of this period), and an Early Bronze Age occupation. The Kazanluk Tomb, discovered in 1944 on the outskirts of town, is a Thracian burial tomb of an unknown ruler from the 4th or 3rd century BC. The fine murals that decorate the entire tomb distinguish it from 13 similar known examples.
Kephala: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late (Final) Neolithic settlement and cist grave cemetery on the Cycladic island of Kea, dated to the mid-4th millennium BC. The cemetery of graves made of small flat stones in circular or rectangular constructions each had a number of burials. Children were commonly buried in pottery jars (pithoi). The typical pottery was covered with a red slip and decorated by patter burnishing. Evidence for copper-smelting was found, one of the earliest occurrences in the Aegean. There is evidence of close links between Kephala and sites in Attica (Athens, Thorikos).
Kerameikós: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The most prestigious cemetery and pottery workshop region of Athens, including a multiple burial of Spartans from the 5th century BC. Many tombs were marked by stelae with relief decoration. There was a precinct for the Messenians, one for some immigrants from Heraclea on the Black Sea, and one for those from Sinope, also in the Black Sea region.
kerb: SYNONYM: kerbstone circle
CATEGORY: structure; feature
DEFINITION: The term for a retaining wall built around the edge of a cairn or barrow; a circle of stones bordering a burial mound.
Kernonen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A burial mound of the Armorican Early Bronze Age Tumulus Culture c 2000-2500 BC in Finistère, France. The circular stone cairn covered a rectangular dry-stone chamber. Grave goods include fine flaked flint arrowheads, amber beads, bronze axes and daggers, and wooden hilts decorated with gold nails.
Khafajah: SYNONYM: ancient Tutub; Khafadje
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A group of tells on the Diyala River in east-central Iraq with the best evidence for the threefold subdivision of the Mesopotamian Early Dynastic period (3rd millennium BC). The stratified ceramic sequence from Jemdet Nasr to the late Early Dynastic times, combined with the findings from Tell Asmar, provided this information A temple with ten building levels of the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods was dedicated to the moon god Sin. A second Early Dynastic rectangular mudbrick temple faced onto a square court around which were grouped storehouses and priests' quarters. There are a number of burials beneath the floors of residential housing.
kher: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The term for a quarter of tombs -- the whole number of burial places of a hypogea, an underground chamber or vault.
Khirokitia: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: An Early Neolithic settlement in southern Cyprus, first occupied in the aceramic Neolithic I of the 7th millennium BC. It was abandoned and reoccupied in Neolithic II, later 5th millennium BC. The settlement, surrounded by a massive wall, consisted of round houses of mudbrick on stone footings. Hearths and benches were found inside and some houses had burials with grave goods (especially stone bowls) underneath the floors. There was a fine stone industry, using Anatolian obsidian and flint for tools, local andesite for both tools and containers, and Levantine carnelian for beads. The site has given its name to the Early Neolithic culture of the island.
Khok Phanom Di: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Prehistoric settlement in south-central Thailand with radiocarbon dates of c 2000-1400 BC, though no metal has been found. It had a rich potterymaking and exporting tradition. The burials indicate social hierarchy.
Kish: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Dynastic city-state of ancient Sumer near Babylon, spreads over a series of tells. Occupation began in the Jemdet Nasr period, succeeded by Early Dynastic levels containing the remains of a royal Sumerian palace. There are also Neo-Babylonian forts, temples, tombs, and a Parthian fort and buildings. Though the supremacy passed to Ur c 2600 BC, Kish remained in occupation right through to the Sassanian period in the early centuries AD. In the Early Dynastic levels, there are rich burials including cart burials similar to those at Ur and Susa. The importance of Kish is seen in texts where it was said to play a pivotal role in the regional political affairs. The city may have been the center of a cultural tradition distinct from that further south in Mesopotamia.
Klasies River Mouth: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A complex of caves and overhangs on the south coast of South Africa (Cape Province). It provides one of the most complete sequences available for the area, including sea-level changes of the Late Pleistocene -- at least the last 60,000 years. A long development of the 'Middle Stone Age' shares some features with the Pietersburg industries and is interrupted by a phase attributed to Howiesons Poort. This is followed by Later Stone Age deposits containing three painted stone slabs and burials with shell beads dating to 5000 years ago. The site has some of the oldest-known remains of anatomically modern Homo sapiens, dating to 100,000 years ago. There are indications of cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene and exploitation of the marine resources around 120,000 years ago.
Klein Aspergle: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a rich Celtic burial of the early La Tène period in Ludwigsburg, Würtemberg, Germany. Funerary offerings included an Etruscan bronze vessel, a native copy of an Etruscan beaked flagon, gold mounts for a pair of drinking horns, and two imported Attic cups dated around 450 BC. In the same village is a slightly earlier tumulus burial, of the late Hallstatt D period, with imported ivories (including a sphinx) as well as bronzes.
Knovíz culture: SYNONYM: Knovís
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age urnfield culture of Bohemia, Thuringia, and Bavaria, following the decline of the Tumulus Bronze Age, c 1400-900 BC. Except for the burial rite, the Knovíz culture is similar to that of the neighboring Milavce group. The Knoviz group is one of the exceptions to the normal urnfield rite in that inhumation is more frequent than cremation burial. Few large settlement sites are known, the bulk of material deriving from small farmsteads with pits and post-holes and cemeteries. Hengiform monuments and horseshoe-shaped enclosures are occasionally associated with Knoviz pottery. The vessel form is the Etagengefass, with a large bulging body and a smaller bottomless pot fused on top of it to form the neck.
Knowth: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the largest Neolithic burial grounds on the River Boyne in County Meath, Ireland. It is a circular burial mound containing two passage graves entered from opposite sides. The first is a large but simple passage grave, with several decorated stones but no evidence of corbelling. The second tomb, also a passage grave, has a corbel-vaulted burial chamber with three niches. One of these contained a stone basin ornamented with grooves and circular designs, and there is further carving on the walls of the tomb itself. The central mound was surrounded by at least 15 smaller tombs, each under its own cairn, and these 'satellite' tombs included both entrance graves and passage graves of cruciform plan. Knowth is one of the three principal elements of the Boyne Valley megalithic cemetery, dating from the 4th millennium BC. Knowth was later reoccupied in the early historic period when Souterrains were constructed within the mound. Excavations have also revealed the remains of the Early Christian royal center here, belonging to the Northern Brega known from the Irish annals.
Kok Charoen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in central Thailand, dating to the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, which yielded occupational remains and more than 60 burials furnished with pottery similar to that of Non Nok Tha. It is considered to be the largest Neolithic burial site so far discovered in Southeast Asia.
Kolomoki: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large multi-mound site in southern Georgia, US, that includes burial mounds and a platform mound from the latter half of the 1st century AD. It seems to have thrived in the period between the decline of the Woodland Tradition and the emergence of the Mississippian. Elaborately worked funerary vessels and grave goods such as copper ornaments and shell beads attest to ceremonial burial practice. There are indications of a chiefdom organization.
Krefeld-Gellep: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large Roman and Frankish cemetery located on the lower Rhine in Germany. Among the 2000 excavated burials within the cemetery, one grave of outstanding wealth dated to about 630 AD contained a gilded helmet, a sword inlaid with precious stones, three spears, a dagger, ax, and shield. There were other items of silver, gold, and bronze. The personal apparel included a garnet-inlaid purse and gold belt-buckle and ring. The occupant may have been a chieftain or the founder of a settlement.
Kuala Selinsing: SYNONYM: Tanjong Rawa
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A coastal site in northern Perak, peninsular Malaysia, which has produced remains of pile dwellings probably built over a mangrove swamp, burials in canoe-like coffins, pottery similar to Pontian, Indian seals, Chinese stonewares, and remains of a bead industry from the 1st millennium AD. The site may have been a small trade station between 600-1100 AD.
Kujavish grave: SYNONYM: Kujavian grave
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A distinctive type of grave of central Poland during the middle part of the local Neolithic / TRB culture. Each tomb consists of a triangular or trapeze-shaped mound which covers a single flat grave containing an extended inhumation burial. The chamber or a trench was usually stone-built, covered by long trapezoidal barrows, and sometimes surrounded by a stone kerb. Very few of these tombs had more than one burial.
Kulli: CATEGORY: culture; ceramics
DEFINITION: An important Chalcolithic culture and pottery style of south Baluchistan. The pottery is mainly buff and wheelmade, painted in black with friezes of elongated humped bulls, cats, or goats and spiky trees between zones of geometric ornament. Clay figurines of women and bulls are found in this culture, as are copper tools and ornaments of lapis lzauli, bone and other materials. The culture is further distinguished from those of Amri-Nal in the same area by the practice of cremation burial; an important cemetery was excavated at Mehi. Mud-brick architecture and small tell sites are common to the two cultures. There are signs of Indus civilization influence on later Kulli material with carved stone vessels identical with examples from Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, dating to the early 3rd millennium BC.
kurgan: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: The Russian word for a burial mound (barrow or tumulus) covering a pit grave, mortuary house, or catacomb grave. It is mainly connected with Eneolithic and Bronze Age burial practices. The earliest kurgans appeared during the 4th millennium BC among the Copper Age peoples of the Caucasus, and soon afterwards in the south Russian steppe and the Ukraine. Shortly after 3200 BC, the kurgan cultures began influencing most of the east, central, and northern Europe. The local Late Neolithic and Copper Age communities adopted such new traits as globular amphora vessels, corded ware, asymmetrical stone battle-axes, domesticated horses, and burial of a single body (often sprinkled with ochre) in a pit or mortuary house, covered by a barrow. After c 2500 BC, several regional kurgan-derived cultures can be recognized. In Russia, the kurgan tradition persisted late and was still practiced by the historical Scythians and Sarmatians of the steppe zone. Three forms of kurgan burial can be identified: Yamnaya (pit-grave) burial, dated c 2400-1800 BC; Katakombnaja (catacomb-grave) burial, dated c 2300-1800 BC; and Srubnaya (timber grave) burial, dated c1600-900 BC.
Kurgan cultures: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A seminomadic pastoralist culture that spread from the Russian steppes to Danubian Europe about 3500 BC. By about 2300 BC the Kurgans arrived in the Aegean and Adriatic regions. The Kurgans buried their dead in deep shafts within artificial burial mounds, or barrows. The word kurgan means barrow or artificial mound in Turkic and Russian. The first Kurgan culture was the Yamnaya, or Pit-Grave, culture. Then came the Catacomb Grave culture, and finally the Srubnaya (Timber-Grave) culture.
Kurru, el-: SYNONYM: Kurru
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Upper Nubia with a royal necropolis of the Napatan period, c late 9th-mid-7th centuries BC. The site was first used from c 1000 BC onwards for the tumulus burials of the rulers of the kingdom of Kush (Kerma culture). These were replaced by steep-sided pyramids after the conquest of Egypt by the Napatan kings.
Kuyavian long barrow: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Earthen long barrows of the Funnel Beaker culture in northern Poland from c 3000 BC. The are usually surrounded by a kerb of large boulders and sometimes megalithic. They have a trapezoidal plan, normally have single primary burials, and are related to the Hunebeds of northern Germany and Holland.
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.
La Ferrassie: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter in the Dordogne, southwest France, with Middle Palaeolithic material and burials of several Neanderthal. Occupation began in the Mousterian period, to which belong two Neanderthal adults and five children, buried in shallow trenches. There are several layers of 'Ferrassie', a subdivision of the Charentian Mousterian tradition, with Levallois flaking. There is a long series of Upper Palaeolithic levels, including Châtelperonian, Aurignacian, and finally a thin Gravettian level. The stratification has contributed to an understanding of the Upper Palaeolithic sequence in France.
La Gorge-Meillet: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Rich Iron Age chariot burial of the Marnian culture, Marne, France. The body of a youth is accompanied by sword, bronze helmet, gold items, spearheads, wheelmade pottery vessels, and an Etruscan bronze flagon. It is dated to La Tène c 475-450 BC.
La Tène: SYNONYM: La Tene period
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The site of a great Iron Age votive deposit in the shallow water at the east end of Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Excavations revealed wooden piles, two timber causeways, and a mass of tools and weapons of bronze, iron, and wood (swords, fibulae, spearheads, etc.). Some of these objects bore curvilinear patterns which are the hallmark of La Tène (Celtic) art everywhere from central Europe to Ireland and the Pyrenees. La Tène has given its name to the second major division of the European Iron Age, which followed the Hallstatt period over much of the continent and lasted from mid-5th century BC until the Celts were subdued by Roman conquest c 50 BC. Settlement was characteristically in hillforts and, from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, massive oppida occur. As in the Hallstatt culture, there is a notable distinction between the markedly wealthy burials of chieftains and their associates, and burials of other members of society. The highest development, and the birth of the art style, took place in west central Europe from the Rhineland to the Marne. Contact with the Greek and Etruscan worlds brought wine, metal flagons, and Attic drinking cups into lands north of the Alps, and La Tène art shows links with that of the Scythians to the east. In Britain, contact with the continental La Tène cultures is shown by chariot burials and the presence of La Tène art motifs on metalwork and pottery. British cultures showing La Tène influence are sometimes grouped within an Iron Age B complex. In Ireland, which the Romans never invaded, a Celtic culture and an art style with La Tène elements persisted into the Early Christian period. It is subdivided into La Tène I c 480-220 BC, La Tène II c 220-120 BC, and La Tène III c 120-Roman conquest(at different times in different areas).
Lachish: SYNONYM: Tell Duweir, Tell ed-Duweir
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Palestinian Biblical site which was a Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age cave dwelling, after which the caves were used for burials and a settlement founded. A massive plastered glacis of Hyksos type belonged to the Middle Bronze Age settlement, but was destroyed by the Egyptians c 1580 BC. The Canaanites built three successive temples in the 15th-13th centuries BC. Lachish was sacked in 701 BC by the Assyrians, noted in the palace reliefs in Nineveh. It fell to Babylonians in 588 BC. There were later levels of Achaemenid and Hellenistic date. The site is most famous for three vital groups of inscriptions, including a dagger dated to the 18th or 17th century BC with four symbols engraved on it -- one of the earliest alphabetic inscriptions known. Lachish has also produced a group of incised pottery vessels associated with the temple at the foot of the mound and dated to c1400 BC, and a group of incised potsherds found within a guardhouse by the gate and dating to the period immediately before the Babylonian destruction.
Lahun, el-/al-: SYNONYM: Illahun; Kahun
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Egyptian site at the entrance to the Faiyum (Fayyum), important in the Middle Kingdom (c 1938-1600 BC). There is the pyramid of Senwosret (Senusret/Sesostris) II (1880-1874 BC) and the burial of Princess Sat-Hathor-Iunet with rich grave goods. The pyramid was unusual in that the entrance to the burial chamber was not on the north side of the pyramid but on the south. The pyramid was robbed in antiquity but a treasure of jewelry was discovered in the tombs of the princesses, located within the pyramid-enclosure wall. Technically and artistically, the collection rivals all other Middle Kingdom objects of its type. Hieratic papyri dealing with a variety of subjects have been recovered at the site. Excavation of the village and necropolis, which was also inhabited during the Second Intermediate Period (c 1630-1540 BC), revealed a remarkable degree of town planning.
Lake Nitchie: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Ancient lake bed in western New South Wales, Australia, with a shaft burial of a very tall man wearing a necklace of 159 pierced teeth of the Tasmanian devil -- about 47 of the now-extinct animals. The burial was dated to c 6500-7000 bp.
Lake Sentani: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A lake in northeastern Irian Jaya, northern New Guinea, known for a range of tools and weapons of bronze and brass found in burial mounds. These artifacts are undated, but could represent a metallurgical industry established by Indonesian traders in recent centuries. New Guinea has no other ancient metallurgical traditions. The items included socketed axes and spearheads.
langi tombs: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Large square or rectangular earthen burial mounds on the island of Tonga of the Tui Tonga dynasty. They have terraced sides faced with slabs of cut coral limestone. Some contain burial chambers, also built of coral slabs. According to tradition, langi were the burial places of the Tongan ruling aristocracy. Most are associated with the ceremonial center at Mu'a on Tongatapu.
lapis lazuli: SYNONYM: khesbed
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A semiprecious stone of an intense blue color, very popular in the ancient Near East for decorative inlays, beads, seals, etc. It is a metamorphosed form of limestone, rich in the blue mineral lazurite, which is dark blue in color and often flecked with impurities of calcite, iron pyrites, or gold. Its main source was Badakhshan, northern Afghanistan, and in Iran, from which it was traded as far as Egypt. The Egyptians considered that its appearance imitated that of the heavens, therefore they considered it to be superior to all materials other than gold and silver. They used it extensively in jewelry until the Late Period (747-332 BC), when it was particularly popular for amulets. One of the richest collection of lapis lazuli objects was found in the burials at Tepe Gawra. It has also been found at Ovalle, Chile.
Las Bocas: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Puebla, Mexico, known for its hollow figurines and other pottery in the Olmec style, at the eastern entrance to the Morelos Plain. Las Bocas is noticeably similar to a site at the other end of the plain, Chalcatzingo, and is thought to have been one of a series of Olmec trading stations. Burials similar to those at Tlatilco further confirm the Olmec connection.
Later Stone Age: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The third and final phase of Stone Age technology in sub-Saharan Africa, dating from about 30,000+ years ago until historical times in some places. There was much art and personal decoration, evidence of burials, and in assemblages some microlithic stone tools. Pottery and stone bowls appear during the last three millennia as the lifeways changed to herding from nomadic hunting and gathering. The large number of distinctive Later Stone Age industries that emerged reflect increasing specialization as hunter-gatherers exploited different environments, often moving seasonally between them, and developed different subsistence strategies. As in many parts of the world, changes in technology seem to mark a shift to the consumption of smaller game, fish, invertebrates, and plants. Later Stone Age peoples used bows and arrows and a variety of snares and traps for hunting, as well as grindstones and digging sticks for gathering plant food; with hooks, barbed spears, and wicker baskets they also were able to catch fish and thus exploit rivers, lakeshores, and seacoasts more effectively. The appearance of cave art, careful burials, and ostrich eggshell beads for adornments suggests more sophisticated behavior and new patterns of culture. These developments apparently are associated with the emergence between 20,000 and 15,000 BC of the earliest of the historically recognizable populations of southern Africa: the Pygmy, San, and Khoi peoples, who were probably genetically related to the ancient population that had evolved in the African subcontinent.
Laterza: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A cemetery of rock-cut tombs near Taranto, southeast Italy, which has given its name to a local Copper Age culture of the 3rd millennium BC. The tombs were used for collective burial and contained grave goods including a few copper weapons, tools, and ornaments, bifacially worked flint arrowheads and a variety of decorated pottery bowls and cups, some of which appear to be ancestral to the Apennine pottery of the Bronze Age. Other Laterza burial sites are known; these include rock-cut tombs and stone cists and possibly megalithic tombs.
latte: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Double rows of large stone pillars with capstones that formed the foundation of structures, especially in the Mariana Islands, Micronesia, about 1000 years ago. The latte stones of this area are now thought to have been piles for raised houses, perhaps for chiefs and wealthy men, since the latte sites are relatively few for the reported population. Burials were sometimes placed between the pillars.
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.
Laurel culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Initial Woodland culture, dating c 200 BC-700 AD, located in northern Michigan, northern Ontario, northern Minnesota, south-central Manitoba, and east-central Saskatchewan. Artifacts include togglehead antler harpoons, cut beaver incisors, copper tools and beads, and grit-tempered pottery with stamping and incising. Laurel sites also have burial mounds.
Lefkandi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important settlement site on Euboea, an island in the Aegean, occupied from the later 3rd millennium till the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Early levels have Anatolian-type pottery. At Toumba there is an artificial tumulus covering an apsidal structure which is surrounded by a peristyle of wooden columns, c 1000 BC. The rich burial of a man and woman may have been a shrine for a hero cult. Artifacts link this site to the eastern Mediterranean: the large bronze vessel in which the man's ashes were deposited came from Cyprus, and the gold items buried with the woman are of sophisticated workmanship. Remains of horses were found as well; the animals had been buried with their snaffle bits. The grave was within a large collapsed house, whose form anticipates that of the Greek temples two centuries later. This burial and finds at other cemeteries further attest contacts between Egypt and Cyprus between 1000-800 BC.
Leg Piekarski: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rich burial site in west-central Poland, dated to 1st-2nd century AD, referred to as 'princes' graves'. There are elaborate silver and bronze vessels among the grave goods. The burials are evidence of the emergence of local hereditary chiefdoms at that time.
Leki Male: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A complex of tumulus burials of the Unetice culture of southern Poland. The central burials are in stone cists with wood ceilings, covered with stone. Grave goods include bronze axes, daggers, and halberds; gold ornaments, amber ornaments, and pottery. These are similar to burials of the Wessex culture.
Lemba-Lakkous: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Chalcolithic settlement of the mid-4th to mid-3rd millennia BC in western Cyprus. Circular huts of stone and pisé were accompanied by pit grave burials.
Lerici periscope: SYNONYM: Nistri periscope
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A subsurface detection probe fitted with a periscope or camera and light source, used to examine subterranean chambers -- most often Etruscan tombs. The Lerici Foundation of Milan and Rome has had great success with this method since the development of the periscope, first used in 1957 in an Etruscan tomb in the cemetery of Monte Abbatone. The periscope is inserted into the burial chamber and can photograph the walls and contents of the whole tomb.
Leubingen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Bronze Age chieftain's burial of the Unetice culture of Saxony, Germany. It consisted of a lean-to wooden mortuary chamber under a stone cairn, itself covered by a barrow. Inside was the burial of an extended elderly male and, placed at right angles across him, a second body, of an adolescent, perhaps female. Grave goods included a series of gold ornaments (pins, spirals, hair-rings, beads, earrings, and an arm-ring), bronze daggers, axes, halberds, and chisels; stone tools, and pottery.
Levkas: SYNONYM: Leucas
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the Ionian Islands off the west coast of Greece, which was once believed to be Homer's Ithaca, home of Odysseus. Mycenaean remains at Nidhrí on the east coast testify to early occupation and convince some scholars that Leucas, not Ithaca, was the home of Odysseus.The cave of Chirospilia has yielded Neolithic material, but more important are the Early and Middle Bronze Age cemeteries. The former included the rites of jar burial and partial cremation under barrows. Two groups of tombs of the Middle Bronze Age contained some Minyan Ware, and show some links with the shaft graves of Mycenae, as also with burial mounds in Albania. In the mid-7th century BC, Corinthian colonists established themselves just south of the present capital and dug a canal through the isthmus. Under Roman rule in the 2nd century BC, a stone bridge, of which there are some remains, was constructed to the main island. In 167, the Romans made Levkas a free city.
Li Chi (1896-1979): SYNONYM: [Li Ch'i]
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Chinese archaeologist responsible for establishing the historical authenticity of the semilegendary Shang dynasty of China (c 1766-1122 BC). He supervised numerous excavations at Anyang (An-yang), working to identify the features distinguishing the Shang civilization from previous Neolithic cultures. More than 300 tombs, including four important royal burial sites, were uncovered and carefully studied. Some 1,100 skeletons and oracle bones, unquestionably linked with the Shang period, were recovered. Li Chi created a typology of bronzes based on their shapes, of ceramic sherds, and bone hairpins. Following the Japanese invasion of China and the expulsion of the Chinese Nationalists from the mainland, many of Li's Anyang remains and notes were lost. After escaping to Taiwan, he established the first archaeology and anthropology department at a Chinese university (National University in Taipei). He published a number of books, including The Beginnings of Chinese Civilization" (1957). "
Lifan: SYNONYM: Li-fan
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Type site northwest of Chengdu, China, of a local culture of western Sichuan province. It was characterized by slate cist burials and grave goods suggests that the culture flourished in the late Eastern Chou and early Han periods. It seems to have wide-ranging contacts, including metropolitan China (western Han coins), the Xindian culture of Gansu (pottery shapes), the Ordos region (small animal bronzes), and perhaps even Western Asia (glass beads).
Lindenschmit, Ludwig (1809-1893) and Wilhelm (1806-1848): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Brothers who attributed burials they excavated at Selzen near Mainz to Great Invasions and the Franks. They used comparative methods and made proper use of terminus post quem provided by dates on coins.
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.
Liulige: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town in Hui Xian, Hunan province, China, where many burials of the Shang and Eastern Chou periods have been excavated. The Shang burials, some containing bronze ritual vessels, belong to the Erligang Phase. Eastern Chou finds date from the 7th-2nd centuries BC, and include one of the largest of Chinese chariot burials -- a single pit containing 19 chariots.
llama: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: South American member of the camel family, Camelidae, a domesticated animal exploited by the ancient Andean civilizations as a beast of burden and, to a lesser extent, for its meat and wool. It is smaller in size than a camel and lacking a hump. Its wild ancestor, the guanaco, is still found in the Andes. The center of domestication was probably the highlands of southern Peru, Bolivia, and north Chile, perhaps as early as the 6th millennium BC. The first clear evidence of its domestication (dating to the Initial Period) comes from ceremonial burials in the Viru Valley and from remains at Kotosh. Able to carry loads of up to 60 kg over difficult terrain, the Ilama gained economic importance as the basic unit of transportation of goods in the Inca empire, and was also maintained purely as a form of wealth, with the state owning huge flocks. Sacrifice (sometimes in the hundreds) was quite common.
long-barrow / long barrow: SYNONYM: portal tomb, court tomb
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: An elongated mound covering a burial chamber, typical of the Early and Mid-Neolithic periods in Europe. Barrows of the Neolithic Period were long and contained the various members of a family or clan. In southern England, the burial chamber consists of a megalithic tomb.
longevity: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The expectation of the life span of a person, culture, etc. Man's expectation of life is one of the simplest ways of measuring his ability to cope with his surroundings. It can rarely be calculated for an ancient population because too few skeletons are usually found to provide an adequate statistical sample for skeletal analysis. Even then the results may be biased, since infants often failed to qualify for ceremonial burial and so may not be represented. The age distribution of even a few skeletons, however, may give useful results.
Lough Gur: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of 16 Neolithic and Early Bronze Age settlement sites around the shores of a lake in Limerick, Ireland, one of the greatest concentrations of sites in Ireland. There were rectangular Neolithic houses, some associated with Beaker pottery. Some are enclosed by a double ring of stones, dated to c 2600 bc. There are also megalithic chambered tombs and stone circles nearby. Ritual or funerary monuments include menhirs, a wedge-shaped gallery grave, a flat-topped cairn with urn burials, and a circle of contiguous stones which yielded Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age pottery. There are also several cashels and a crannog.
Mad'arovce: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Bronze Age regional group of the central Danube basin in western Slovakia and dated to the mid-2nd millennium BC. A large number of sites are hilltop settlements fortified by earthen banks or ditches. Tell-like multi-phase settlements are also known from lowland valleys, often with rich assemblages of dark burnished pottery. Mixed burial rites, sometimes inhumation, sometimes cremation, are known from the medium-sized lowland cemeteries. The culture emerged towards the end of the neighboring Unetice culture and may have been a late sub-group of that culture.
Maes Howe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A magnificent passage grave in Orkney, Scotland, roofed by corbeling and covered by a circular cairn surrounded by a ring ditch. Its unusual plan is a squared burial chamber with three rectangular cells opening from it through doorways placed about a meter above the level of the chamber floor. Nothing was found inside the tomb, but scratched on the wall is a 12th-century AD inscription in runes stating that the grave was looted by Vikings who carried off a great treasure. However, radiocarbon dates average c 2700 BC.
Magdalenska Gora: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Iron Age (Hallstatt period) complex of tumuli of the early La Tene period, located near Smarje/Sticna, in Slovenia. The cemetery comprises large barrows into which as many as 40 burials are inserted. The rich grave goods include weapons, armor, helmets, horse trappings, jewelry, and bronze vessels, including a complete bronze situlae -- all from the 7th century BC.
Maikop: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The site of one of the richest Eneolithic Kurgan burials ever discovered, located in the northern Caucasus Mountains of Russia and dating to the late 3rd millennium BC. The barrow covered a timber mortuary house divided into three sections. In the central one was a royal burial of a man sprinkled with ochre and laid under a canopy with gold and silver supports. The corpse was accompanied by copper tools and weapons, gold ornaments, gold vessels and figurines, rich textiles, carnelian and turquoise jewelry, wooden carts or wagons, and silver vases engraved with animal scenes. The metalwork shows links with Mesopotamia and southwest Asia. The Maikop burials have given their name to the Maikop culture and its walled settlements.
Mailhac: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of important Late Bronze Age and Iron Age sites near Narbonne in southwest France, dating from the 8th-1st centuries BC. The sites comprise a defended hilltop settlement (Le Cayla) and a series of urnfield cemeteries (Le Moulin, Grand Bassin I and II). The earliest phase has an urnfield-type cemetery, wooden houses, and evidence of farming supplemented by hunting. In the second phase (early 6th century BC), Hallstatt influences include iron and a chieftain's wagon burial (La Redorte). Greek and Etruscan imports appear in both graves and occupation deposits in this and in the succeeding phase. Occupation ended early in the 1st century BC with a burning, probably a Roman punitive action after threatened uprisings in the area.
Mal'ta: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic site in south-central Siberia. There are traces of a dwelling and a burial of a young person of possibly mongoloid affinities, as well as several art objects. The Upper Palaeolithic level is dated to the beginning of the last glacial maximum, c 24,000-23,000 bp. The artifacts include prismatic cores, retouched blades, and end scrapers.
Mapungubwe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Late Iron Age hilltop site in northern Transvaal, that was South Africa's first urban center. It has given its name to the southern facies of phase B of the Leopard's Kopje complex and it was occupied between 1220-1270 AD. The material from the earliest levels is very similar to that from the nearby site of Bambandyanalo. Mapungubwe was a forerunner of the developments at Great Zimbabwe and may have been the capital of a state that controlled trade with the East African coast. In Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe, a wealthy and privileged elite built with stone and were buried with gold and copper ornaments, exotic beads, and fine imported pottery and cloth. Their homes, diet, and ostentatious burials are in stark contrast to those of the common folk. The 13th-century burial of an important official uncovered at Mapungubwe was accompanied by a gold-covered statue of a rhinoceros, a golden staff, and other artifacts -- one of the earliest indications of gold mining in southern Africa. The Mapungubwe gold was panned from alluvial deposits.
Marajó Island, Marajoara: SYNONYM: Marajó
CATEGORY: culture; artifact; site
DEFINITION: A large island at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil with numerous artificial mound sites. Small one served as house platforms and larger ones contain urn burials. The pottery has sophisticated polychrome designs and is similar to that of pre-Columbian Andean cultures. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the Marajoara style began no later than the 5th century AD and lasted until 1300 AD. The largest center, Os Camutins, has 40 mounds. It is the world's largest fluvial island (one produced by sediments deposited by a stream or river) and half of it is flooded during the rainy season.
Marianas Islands: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island group in western Micronesia with a sequence starting with settlement around 1500 BC, by island people in Southeast Asia. They made a distinctive red-slipped ware (Marianas Redware Phase), sometimes incised with lime-filled decoration, closely related to Philippine wares. By 800 AD, a plain, unslipped ware was in use, and stone architecture had developed. Parallel rows of upright pillars topped with hemispheric capstones (halege) were erected. The pillars were supports for structures called latte (after which term the culture is named), which may have served as houses or canoe sheds. Each village had from one to several latte structures. Stone and shell tools were used and the betel nut was chewed, as shown by extended burials most often located between the rows of latte.
Mariette, François Auguste Ferdinand (1821-1881): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French Egyptologist who excavated many of the major Egyptian sites and monuments and founded the Egyptian Antiquities Service and what was to become the Cairo Museum (National Museum of Egyptian Antiquities). He excavated the Saqqara Serapeum and found the burials of the Apis bulls and the jewels belonging to Rameses II. He also uncovered sites at Giza, Abydos, Thebes, Edfu, Elephantine, and in the Delta. He is buried in sarcophagus in front of Cairo Museum.
Marinatos, Spyridon Nikolaou (1901-1974): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Greek archaeologist who came up with the theory that the end of the Minoan civilization in the Aegean could have been caused by the volcano on the island of Thera in 1500 BC. He also discovered the buried Bronze Age port city at Akrotiri on Thera. Among the finds made at the site were the finest frescoes discovered in the Mediterranean region to that time, surpassing even those found at Knossos in Crete. He was the discoverer of the site of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) and the burial ground associated with the Battle of Marathon (490 BC). He wrote Crete and Mycenae" (1959)."
Mariupol: SYNONYM: Zhdanov
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Neolithic cemetery of the Dnepr-Donets culture on the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine. Burials included flint tools, pendants and beads of animal teeth, bone, and shells. Non-local stone beads were also found.
Marnian: SYNONYM: Marnians
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Iron Age / La Tène culture of northeastern France, who occupied a region centered on the Marne Valley. They were characterized by chariot burials from the time c 475-325 BC. They may have invaded or traded with Britain in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. There were close connections between the Marne region groups and the Arras culture of eastern Yorkshire.
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.
mastaba: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The Arabic word for 'bench', a mudbrick superstructure of Egyptian tombs, mainly of the Archaic Period and Old Kingdom, including the royal tombs of the 1st and 2nd Dynasty. It was a low, rectangular building with a flat roof and vertical or slightly inclined walls that enclosed the shaft to the underground burial chamber. Later versions were reinforced with stone and more elaborate. It often contained a chapel, a statue of the deceased, and sometimes large numbers of rooms. The pyramids were a direct development from them. At first, kings as well as their nobles and officials were buried in mastabas, but from the 3rd Dynasty, pharaohs had pyramids and the mastabas of their eminent subjects were built around the pyramids.
Mawangdui: SYNONYM: Ma-wang-tui
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Hunan province, China, near Chang-Sha (Changsha City), of three Early Han-dynasty tombs with features of both shaft and mounded tombs. Tomb No. 2 belonged to the first marquis of Dai (d. 186 BC), a high official of the Han administration. Nos. 3 and 1 are apparently the tombs of his son (d. 168 BC) and wife (d. shortly after 168 BC). In construction and contents the three tombs are far different from Han princely burials in the north and reflect the lingering traditions and material culture of the Chu kingdom, which had fallen to Qin less than a century earlier. Each tomb takes the form of a massive compartmented timber box at the bottom of a deep stepped shaft; the shaft was filled in with rammed earth and a mound was raised over it. The contents of Tomb No. 1 were very well preserved: the body of the wife of the marquis, wrapped in silk and laid inside four richly decorated nested coffins. The 180 dishes, toilet boxes, and other lacquer articles, silk clothing, offerings of food, musical instruments, small wooden figures of servants and musicians, and a complete inventory of the grave goods written on bamboo slips depict extreme wealth. Tomb 3 was furnished in the same fashion as Tomb 1, but contained more silk paintings, three rare musical instruments, and an extraordinary collection of manuscripts, some on silk and some on bamboo slips, including some of the earliest known maps from China, treatises on medicine and astronomy, comet charts, and important literary texts (the Daoist/Taoist classic Dao De jing" ("Tao te ching") the "Yi jing" ("Book of Changes")) The contents of Tomb 2 are comparable to those of Tomb 1 but poorly preserved."
Maysar: SYNONYM: Samad
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Umm An-Nar settlement in southeastern Arabia with Bronze Age copper smelting. It was the chief product of the ancient Magan. There is also evidence of Bronze Age agriculture and burial patterns; Iron Age settlements, fortifications, and burials.
me'ae: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A ceremonial structure of the southern Marquesas Islands, Polynesia, comprising complex, irregular groups of terraces with platforms (pa'epa'e). Mortuary me'ae were built in secluded places and used stone-lined pits for burials. Public me'ae were associated with tohua.
megalith: SYNONYM: megalithic; megalithic tomb; megalithic monument
CATEGORY: feature; structure
DEFINITION: From the Greek megas 'large' and lithos 'stone', the term for a large stone and also for structures or arrangements of large stones (menhirs, stone circles, and alignments). The term is especially used for the monuments of northern and western Europe from the Mesolithic period, such as Stonehenge and Carnac in France of the late Neolithic culture of western Europe. Such a stone was sometimes free-standing, sometimes part of a structure. The term could also refer to a large tomb which used megaliths to create passages and chambers in which burials of one or more people could be placed, such as the passage graves of Brittany. Some authorities have used the term in a still wider sense to cover monuments built of Cyclopean masonry such as the Maltese Temples, the Nuraghi of Sardinia and the Navetas of Minorca. Various types of megalithic monuments have also been found in parts of Asia, Oceania, and Africa. The migration theories based on megalithic monuments are now discounted. It is now accepted that the practice of erecting these monuments arose independently in different times and places and for different reasons.
megalithic culture: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: In India, an Iron Age culture of the south from the 1st millennium BC or earlier which lasted into the early 1st millennium AD. The grave forms include urn burials and various cist, pit, and rock-cut graves. Stone alignments are also associated and graves generally contain burnished black-and-red ware, iron tools, weapons, horse and household equipment.
menhir: CATEGORY: structure; artifact
DEFINITION: A single, vertical standing stone; any prehistoric structure consisting of a tall, upright megalith (huge stone). The name is from the Old Breton men, meaning stone" and hir meaning "long". Menhirs occur in all parts of the world where megalithic monuments are known but they are particularly profuse in prehistoric Europe. Menhirs are difficult to date but in Ireland and southwest England a few examples mark burials dating from the Neolithic to the Middle or Late Bronze Age. A similar or slightly earlier date is attested for some of the Breton menhirs. In all these areas a few of the stones bear cup marks. Such a megalith is often isolated erected by a family or tribe as a memorial stone for some deceased hero or some great event. It may have been a religious object for worship like the American Indian totem pole. Other are associated with dolmens tumuli and circles of stones. Menhirs may occur singly in rows (alignments) or in enclosures (stone circles). Anthropomorphic examples are known as statue-menhirs."
Middle Bronze Age: SYNONYM: MBA
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: In the Levant, the period of sophisticated urban civilization of the Canaanites, MBA I c 1950-1800 BC and MBA II c 1800-1550 BC. The Middle Bronze Age provides the background for the beginning of the story of the Old Testament. The archaeological evidence for the period shows new types of pottery, weapons, and burial practices. It was an urban civilization based on agriculture. There was much contact with the Phoenicians and the Egyptians during this time. The destruction of Megiddo, Jericho, and Tell Beit Mirsim that followed the Egyptians' expulsion of the Hyksos into Palestine occurred at the end of the Middle Bronze Age.
Middle Paleolithic: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The intermediate part of the Paleolithic period, from about 100,000 years ago to about 35,000 years ago. It was characterized by the development of a variety of stone tools and the first symbolic use of artifacts and sites. It ended with the extinction of the Neanderthals. The Middle Paleolithic is equivalent to the Middle Stone Age in sub-Saharan Africa. The Middle Paleolithic comprises the Mousterian, a portion of the Levalloisian, and the Tayacian, all of which are complexes based on the production of flakes, although the hand-ax tradition survived in many instances. Middle Paleolithic assemblages first appear in deposits of the third interglacial and persist during the first major oscillation of the Fourth Glacial (Würm) stage. Associated with the Tayacian, in which the artifacts consist of very crude flakes, remains of modern man (Homo sapiens) have been found. Mousterian man, on the other hand, is of the Neanderthal race. It is in the Mousterian levels of the caves and rock shelters of central and southern France that the earliest evidence of the use of fire and the first definite burials have been discovered in western Europe. The artifacts consist of (1) the prepared striking-platform-tortoise-core (Levalloisian) tradition; (2) the plain striking-platform-discoidal-core technique of Clactonian tradition; and (3) a persistence of the bifacial core tool, or Acheulean tradition.
Mikhajlovka: SYNONYM: Mikhailovka, Mykhailvka
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement of the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, located in the lower Dnieper Valley near Nikopol, Ukraine. Three main occupation horizons have been distinguished, the first a Cucuteni-Tripolye culture, the second of the Sredni Stog culture, and the last of the Catacomb Grave culture. Near the settlement was a flat cemetery of pit graves (Yamnaya burial rite).
Milazzo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town founded in 716 BC by colonists from Zankle (Messina). It was taken by the Athenians in 426 BC and by the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles in 315 BC. The consul Gaius Duilius won the first Roman naval victory over the Carthaginians in the bay in 260 BC. It is located on the northeast coast of Sicily, facing the Aeolian Islands, and demonstrates close cultural connections with the prehistoric sequence on these islands. It was occupied throughout the Bronze Age; the Middle Bronze Age culture had a cemetery of pithos burials (with the dead placed in large jars in the crouched position) while in the succeeding Late Bronze Age phase (Ausonian culture) had a cemetery of urnfield type, characterized by cremations in urns and bronzes of local Urnfield (Proto-Villanovan) type. The old town on a hill above is partly surrounded by Spanish walls from the 16th century and contains a 13th-century Norman castle.
Mimbres: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Regional variant of the Mogollon culture, centered in south-central New Mexico, and dated to 1000-1200 AD. The Mimbres people are particularly renowned for the black-on-white painted pottery bowls which they made especially to be put in burials. The pottery is decorated with abstract designs and with pictures of people, bears, rabbits, and other animals. Farmers grew maize and gathering beans and acorns; hunting deer, antelope, and rabbits. The culture also evidences a strong Anasazi influence.
Ming Dynasty: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Major late Dynasty of China (1368-1644 AD), succeeding Mongol Yüan Dynasty (1280-1368). The period is known for painting and decorative arts, porcelain, lacquer, cloisonné, and textiles. The burial sites of the Ming emperors are near modern Beijing. The Ming extended the Chinese empire into Korea, Mongolia, and Turkistan on the north and into Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma) on the south, exercising more far-reaching influence in East Asia than any other native rulers of China.
miniature cup: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A generic term for a range of small ceramic vessels accompanying Bronze Age cremation burials in the British Isles during the 2nd millennium BC.
Minusinsk Basin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A steppe region on the upper Yenisei River in southern Siberia, surrounded by forested mountains. Very large numbers of burial mounds of different periods exist in the area and some 40,000 bronze objects survive in collections -- presumably only a fraction of the number originally present. There were many mines in the Basin, worked as early as the 14th century BC.
Mississippian: SYNONYM: Mississippi tradition
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: A group of cultures which arose in southeastern North America -- especially the central and lower Mississippi Valley -- after 700 AD into the historic period. It spread over a great area of the Southeast and the mid-continent, in the river valleys of what are now the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, with scattered extensions northward into Wisconsin and Minnesota and westward into the Great Plains. It stands in contrast to the Woodland Tradition with three new traits -- building of rectangular, flat-topped mounds as bases for temples; burial mounds becoming less prominent; and radical pottery changes (pulverized shell rather than grit used for temper). New pottery shapes and forms, such as olla, and new types of decoration (burnishing, painting) appeared. Maize became the predominant crop, accompanied by beans and squash, which supplemented hunting and gathering. The largest of the earthworks is Monks Mound, in the Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Illinois. The Mississippian is divided into the periods Temple Mound I (700-1200 AD) and Temple Mound II (1200-1700 AD). It was the last major cultural tradition in prehistoric North America. By the late 17th century, all the major centers had been abandoned.
Mitla: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in central Oaxaca, Mexico, which was first occupied in the centuries before 800 BC, after which it became an outpost of Monte Albán civilization. It is generally believed that Mitla (Nahuatl: Place of the Dead) was established as a sacred burial site long before the Christian Era, probably by the Zapotecs, whose influence was predominant until about 900 AD. Between 900-1500, the Mixtecs moved down from northern Oaxaca and took possession of Mitla; it is the Mixtec influence that is most pronounced on the existing ruins. Its ceramics date from Monte Alban I (900-300 BC), but there is no structural evidence until Monte Albán III (200-1521 AD). After the parent site was abandoned in the 8th-10th centuries AD, a fortification wall was built at Mitla and pyramids were constructed there. The town became an important religious center and there are five clusters of columned, flat-roofed palace structures (Grupo de las Columnas (Columns Group), Grupo de las Iglesias (Churches Group), Grupo del Arroyo (Arroyo Group), Grupo de los Adobes (Adobe Group), and Grupo del Sur (Southern Group)). Major construction in the Early Post-Classic coincides with the abandonment of Monte Alban, suggesting that it became a new locus for the Zapotec. At the time of the Spanish Conquest, Mitla was said to be the residence of the Zapotec high priest. Certain frescoes were painted in pure Mixtec style, although Mitla itself may have remained under Zapotec control.
Moche: SYNONYM: Mochica
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The major culture of the northern coast of Peru during the Early Intermediate Period. It originated in the Moche and Chicama Valleys and later spread by conquest as far south as the Santa and Nepeña Rivers. The culture developed around the start of the Christian era and lasted until c 700 AD. Dominant during the Early Intermediate Period (c 400 BC-600 AD), it is best known for its irrigation works, its massive adobe temple-platforms, and for its pottery. Especially famous are the modeled vessels and portrait head vases, and the jars, often with stirrup spouts, painted in reddish brown with scenes of religion, war, and everyday life. The pottery sequence has five phases which are identified by the details of the spout formation on the stirrup-necked bottles and it is used for relative dating of the sites (c 300-700 AD). The Moche culture was the major contributor to the subsequent Chimú culture of the north coast. Huge structures at the ceremonial center include a large, terraced, truncated pyramid, Huaca del Sol, and the smaller Huaca de la Luna, on top of which is a series of courtyards and rooms, some with wall paintings. Huaca del Sol was perhaps the largest single construction of the prehistoric Andean region. Grave goods in gold, silver and copper display a fairly advanced metalworking technology. Archaeologists excavated a site called Huaca Rajada and found the elaborate, jewelry-filled tomb of a Moche warrior-priest. Several more burial chambers containing the remains of Moche royalty have been excavated, all dating from about 300 AD, whose finds greatly aided the understanding of Moche society, religion, and culture. Incised lines on lima beans have recently been interpreted as a form of nonverbal communication similar in concept to the quipu. Developing out of Cupisnique, Gallinazo and Salinar, Moche survived into the Middle Horizon but appears ultimately to have been overtaken by the Huari culture. In the last phase (Moche V), the southern part of the Moche territory was abandoned and a new capital established in the north, at Pampa Grande.
Mont Lassois: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Iron Age hillfort in Cote-d'Or, France, on a route from the River Seine to the Mediterranean. Occupation is dated to the 6th century BC (Hallstatt D), the residence of a Celtic chieftain. The hillfort of Vix seems to have been the center of political authority and extensive trade relations. The rich Celtic and Greek artifacts found there, including Massiliote wine amphorae and Attic black figure ware, as well as those from the nearby tumulus burials near the villages of Vix and Sainte-Colombe-sur-Seine, indicate trade between the Celts and the Greeks.
Montbolo, Balma de: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cave with Neolithic and Chalcolithic deposits in the Pyrenees Orientales, France. The cave is located halfway up a rock face and its Neolithic assemblage has simple globular vessels with tubular lug handles that fall between Early Neolithic cardial ware and Middle Neolithic Chasséen. The layer is dated to 4500 BC; Chalcolithic burials are c 2100 BC.
Monteoru: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A fortified hilltop near Bucharest which is the type site of a Middle to Late Bronze Age culture, c 2000-1600 BC, covering much of eastern Romania. This culture of the Sub-Carpathian zone was of local origin, but absorbed influences from both the south (notably faience in trade) and the steppes. It had a rich, varied collection of pot and metal forms. The site had a citadel with a long occupation and four large grave groupings in an adjoining cemetery. The citadel was fortified by box-like ramparts and stone walls, with house platforms in the interior. The burial rite is predominantly contracted inhumation, with pottery, bronze jewelry, and stone or faience beads as grave goods.
mortuary enclosure: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Any structure made of earth, stone, or wood, used for the storage of bodies prior to their collective burial. Remains of such enclosures are sometimes found under barrows.
moufflon: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: A wild sheep of southwest Asia, Ovis orientalis, found from Cyprus through Syria to Iran. It was the breed first domesticated, being found at Zawi Chemi Shanidar c 9000 BC and Jarmo 6000. Later it was largely replaced by the urial. A second species of moufflon, O. musimon, still occurs wild on Corsica and Sardinia, but is probably descended from escaped domesticates. The males have large curling horns.
mound: SYNONYM: tuft
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A gradual accumulation of debris upon which a continuously occupied settlement is built, or which is the by-product or remains of some activity. The term can mean (1) a constructed earthwork or fortification, especially one with a geometric or animal form (also called effigy mound), (2) a low, isolated, rounded natural hill, usually of earth, (3) a structure built by fossil colonial organisms, (4) prehistoric refuse heap consisting chiefly of the shells of edible mollusks (also called shell mound), or (5) an artificial construction commonly used for human burial (also called burial mound) or as a foundation for a temple or dwelling.
Mound Builder People: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A mythical, non-Native American people, c 500 BC to c 100 AD, postulated as being responsible for constructing the thousands of burial mounds with extensive enclosures of banked earth in the east-central and southeast United States.
mounded tomb: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A type of elite burial used in East Asia built with monumental earthen or stone-piled mounds which contained burial facilities. The burials ranged from wooden chambers, clay enclosures, to brick or stone megalithic chambers. There were round and square mounds and Japan's were keyhole-shaped. The tombs provide the source of data for the Three Kingdoms period of Korea and the Kofun of Japan. One of the earliest mounded tombs of China was that of the First Emperor of Qin, and the Ming tombs are some of the latest. Prestige grave goods are found in all. Haniwa (circle of clay") unglazed terra-cotta cylinders and hollow sculptures were arranged on and around the mounded tombs (kofun) of the Japanese elite dating from the Tumulus period (c 250-552 AD). The first and most common haniwa were barrel-shaped cylinders used to mark the borders of a burial ground. Later in the early 4th century the cylinders were surmounted by sculptural forms such as figures of warriors female attendants dancers birds animals boats military equipment and houses. It is believed that the figures symbolized continued service to the deceased in the other world."
Moundville: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Mississippian site in Alabama comprised of 20, mostly platform, mounds, with over 3000 burials. The site reached its peak c 1250 and it was probably part of a chiefdom. There is much evidence for the Southern Cult.
Mount Carmel: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A group of Palaeolithic caves in Israel, on biblical Mount Carmel, which have between them yielded a long stratigraphy. The most important of these sites are el Wad, es Skhul, Tabun, and Nahal Oren. The sequence begins with coarse flake tools of Tayacian type, followed by Acheulian handax industries. Associated (and perhaps interstratified) with the final Acheulian were Jabrudian artifacts and eventually blade tools of Amudian type. The next industry, the Levalloiso-Mousterian, was represented at two caves, Tabun and es Skhul, and was associated with human remains whose evolutionary position is controversial. The sequence continues with the so-called Emiran industry, followed by the Palestine Aurignacian (also called Antelian), by a blade/scraper/burin industry (the Atlitian), and finally by Natufian. The el Wad has a sequence of Upper Palaeolithic deposits with important Natufian levels at the top and on the plateau outside and numerous associated burials.
Mucking: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement and cemetery site in Essex, one of the largest and most extensively excavated Early Saxon sites in England. It is situated on the high gravel terraces of the Thames estuary and more than 100 sunken huts as well as at least two hall houses have been found. The main occupation debris from the site consists of clay loom-weights; handmade, grass-tempered pots, and some fine metalwork. The cemeteries contain a mixture of inhumation and cremation burials, including some wealthy graves that possess a full range of Early Saxon jewelry and weapons.
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.
Muryong: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early 6th century AD king of Paekche (reigned 501-523) with a mounded tomb in Kongju, Korea. Bricks with molded decoration were used to build the chamber. Burial goods found include a bronze chopstick, spoon set; toiletry items, glass sculptures, and plaque identifying the king.
Musengezi: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Late Iron Age group of the Luangwa Tradition, 13th century AD, known from burial caves in northern Zimbabwe.
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.
Nan Madol: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Town and ceremonial center built in a shallow tidal lagoon off the shore of Ponape in the Caroline Islands; it is the largest single complex of ancient stonework in Oceania, comprising about 70 hectares with 92 rectilinear basalt and coral platforms. The most famous structure is the burial platform of Nan Douwas, which contains four pit-tombs with prismatic basalt enclosure walls up to 8.5 meters high. The whole complex is traditionally associated with the Sau Deleur rulers of Ponape, and was presumably constructed several centuries ago.
Naqada: SYNONYM: ancient Nubt, Ombos; Nagada
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Upper Egypt which produced the first evidence of the Neolithic in Egypt and provided the framework for the Predynastic sequence of the area. Its large Predynastic cemetery yielded some 2,000 burials of the Amratian and Gerzean periods. Naqada I was the Predynastic culture of ancient Egypt and Naqada II had new features accounted for by direct imports and by increasing cultural contact with the rest of the Near East, particularly Mesopotamia.
Narce: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site on the Treia gorge near Calcata in Lazio, Italy, surrounded by an extensive necropolis, and probably inhabited from the 12th century BC. Occupation was mainly by Faliscans, an Indo-European Italic group, and it is therefore associated with their centers at Falerii and Capena. The town prospered under Etruscan domination in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Material evidence seems in general to follow a local (Faliscan) cultural sequence. Evidence survives for fortification walls, pit and trench burials, and chamber tombs with monumental doorways. Occupation continued to the 4th-3rd centuries BC.
Natufian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The final Epipalaeolithic (Mesolithic) culture complex of the Levant, dated to c 12,500-10,000 BP, with its type site at Wadi an-Natuf in Palestine. Hunting and gathering were still the basis of subsistence, but some Natufian communities had adopted a settled mode of life and the period saw the development of cereal grain exploitation. They built first permanent village settlements in pre-agricultural times in Palestine (Mallaha) and on middle Euphrates in Syria (Mureybet, Abu Hureyra). A series of burials was excavated at Mount Carmel; one important site is Wad Cave with a large cemetery, querns, sickles. The shrine at the base of the tell at Jericho was built during the Early Natufian phase, and the descendants of the Natufians built the earliest Neolithic town at the site. The characteristic toolkit includes geometric microliths, sickles, pestles, mortars,