Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for wood:

Catherwood, Frederick (1799-1854): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The first great explorer of Mesoamerica who, along with John Lloyd Stephens, explored the Maya lowlands and made drawings that provided insights into the culture and detailed the Maya glyphs.
Late Woodland period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A period of time, c 400-1000 AD, in the American Midwest, when populations spread west to the eastern slopes of the Rockies and were in contact with eastward-moving Puebloan people. A favorable agricultural period was indicated by the marked increase in village size and in population density. Areas along major streams were occupied by various interrelated cultural groups collectively known as the Plains Mississippian cultures. Part of this complex was connected to the developing Mississippi complexes to the east by diffusion and, to some degree, by a migration of such groups as the Omaha and Ponca from the St. Louis area by about 1000 AD. It follows the Middle Woodland era but lacks the elaborate Hopewellian artifacts and structures.
Little Woodbury: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A palisaded Iron Age farmstead, south of Salisbury in Wiltshire, England, whose excavation set new standards in British Iron Age studies. It consisted of a circular post-built house surrounded by corn-drying frames, granaries, and storage pits, all enclosed within a wooden stockade. It was probably occupied from the 4th-2nd centuries BC.
meadowood point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A triangular side-notched point -- with notches chipped into each side of the base to form a stem below the main part of the point, generally 2 1/2 inches long.
Middle Woodland period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A term sometimes used to describe the time period during which the Hopewell culture flourished throughout the American Midwest, from roughly 50 BC to 400 AD.
petrified wood: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Agatized wood, sometimes used as a raw material for the manufacture of flaked stone artifacts. Often banded or laminated and of variable color
Verwood ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Products of a medieval and later pottery industry based in the New Forest of southern England.
wood: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: xylem
CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: Hard, fibrous substance that is the principal strengthening and water-conducting tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and shrubs. On archaeological sites, wood may be preserved as a result of waterlogging or as charcoal.
wood circle: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: woodhenge
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: Type of circle erected before megaliths were used. Like stone circles, the smaller ones enclosed burials; the larger, like Woodhenge, near Stonehenge, may have been religious circles or roofed, colonnaded shrines. A circular feature demarcated by large upright timbers, esp. for astronomical observations.
wooden-chamber: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Large wooden coffins which is an important form of burial chamber from late Neolithic times in China. A log or board enclosure contained nested wooden coffins and grave goods placed on display ledges within them. Wooden-chambers diffused to Korea and Japan in the early centuries AD.
Woodhenge: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large wood circle, a sacred monument just northeast of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England, and adjacent to Durrington Walls. It consists of a henge-type earthwork with a wooden structure inside. A central grave was surrounded in turn by six egg-shaped concentric rings of postholes, a ditch, and a bank with a single entrance. The long axis of the oval pointed to the midsummer sunrise; on this axis in the center of the shrine was found buried the skeleton of a three-year-old child, a ritual sacrifice. The pottery was a variant of the grooved ware style and Beaker sherds were also found. The monument has a radiocarbon date of c 2230-1800 BC.
Woodland period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Woodland tradition
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Stage in eastern North America c 1000 BC-800 AD that is a period in Native American history and culture. It is characterized by hunter-gatherers, elaborate burial mounds, beginning of substantial agriculture (corn, beans, squash), and pottery decorated with cord or fabric impressions. It is a term restricted to the cultures of the Eastern Woodlands (south and east of Maritime Provinces of Canada to Minnesota and south to Louisiana and Texas) and important sites are Adena, Hopewell, and Effigy Mound. From c 700 AD, the southern part of the Woodland territory shows strong influence from the Mississippian culture, but elsewhere the Woodland tradition continued until the historic period.
Woodland pottery: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A general term for cultural groups living in the wooded eastern parts of North America during the Formative. Woodland subsumes many local adaptations, but in general these were hunter-gatherer communities whose subsistence base was augmented with some cultivation. Woodland communities used pottery and had elaborate toolmaking and artistic traditions. Burials were usually made in established cemeteries, often within large earthen mounds. Trade networks were extensive. Starting about 1000 BC, Woodland comprises a series of distinctive cultures including Adena, Hopewell, Mississippian, and Iroquoian. In some areas Woodland societies continued down to modern times.
Woodruff Ossuary: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Burial in northwest Kansas with 61 disarticulated individuals and Harlan cord-roughened pottery, Scallorn arrow points, hundreds of disk shell beads, and shell pendants. It belongs to the Keith Focus of the Woodland Stage and the burials are in 14+ pits.
woodworking: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The act, art, or trade of working with wood
Acheulian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Acheulean, Acheulian industry
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: A European culture of the Lower Palaeolithic period named for Saint-Acheul, a town in northern France, the site of numerous stone artifacts from the period. The conventional borderline between Abbevillian and Acheulian is marked by a technological innovation in the working of stone implements, the use of a flaking tool of soft material (wood, bone, antler) in place of a hammerstone. This culture is noted for its hefty multipurpose, pointed (or almond-shaped) hand axes, flat-edged cleaving tools, and other bifacial stone tools with multiple cutting edges. The Acheulian flourished in Africa, western Europe, and southern Asia from over a million years ago until less than 100,000 and is commonly associated with Homo erectus. This progressive tool industry was the first to use regular bifacial flaking. The term Epoque de St Acheul was introduced by Gabriel de Mortillet in 1872 and is still used occasionally, but after 1925 the idea of epochs began to be supplanted by that of cultures and traditions and it is in this sense that the term Acheulian is more often used today. The earliest assemblages are often rather similar to the Oldowan at such sites as Olduvai Gorge. Subsequent hand-ax assemblages are found over most of Africa, southern Asia and western and southern Europe. The earliest appearance of hand axes in Europe is still refereed to by some workers as Abbevillian, denoting a stage when hand axes were still made with crude, irregular devices. The type site, near Amiens in the Somme Valley contained large hand ax assemblages from around the time of the penultimate interglacial and the succeeding glacial period (Riss), perhaps some 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. Acheulian hand axes are still found around the time of the last interglacial period, and hand axes are common in one part of the succeeding Mousterian period (the Mousterian of Acheulian tradition) down to as recently as 40,000 years ago. Acheulian is also used to describe the period when this culture existed. In African terminology, the entire series of hand ax industries is called Acheulian, and the earlier phases of the African Acheulian equate with the Abbevillian of Europe.
acrolith: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Greek statue, of which the head and extremities were of stone or marble and the trunk crafted of wood which was either gilt or draped. The acrolith period was the infancy of Greek plastic art.
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.
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.
alkaline glaze: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A relatively low-fired glaze with a high concentration of alkali elements in its composition, often with wood ash in significant quantity
amphitheatre: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: amphitheater
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A large-scale Roman arena open to the elements and surrounded by tiers of seats. They were constructed for exhibiting gladiatorial and other public spectacles (military displays, combats, and wild beast fights) to the populace. The earliest were oval and built of wood, later changing to stone construction. Rome's Colosseum has tiered galleries 2-3 stories in height and has provision for covering the arena with shades to protect against rain or sun. Roofing of so wide an expanse was beyond Roman technology. The arena of the Colosseum had a false timber floor, below which there was a labyrinth of service corridors. The animal cages were situated here, linked with pre-tensioned lifts and automatic trapdoors so that participants and animals could be sent up to the floor of the arena with speed and precision. Somehow Roman engineers staged the grand opening by flooding the arena for a full-scale sea battle. Amphitheatres accommodated a great number of spectators (possibly more than 50,000 at the Colosseum). The Romans derived their ideas from the classic Greek theater and stadium and the model was widely copied throughout the Roman empire. It could be erected on any terrain and set inside an urban center. An early example of the Republican period is at Pompeii the Colosseum is of the Imperial model. The fortress of Caerlon and the towns of Caerwent, Cirencester, Colchester, Dorchester, Richborough, and Wroxeter are some British places which had amphitheatres.
Anapchi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A 7th-century palace site of the Silla Kingdom in Korea. Artifacts include dugout boats, Buddhist images, pottery and metal vessels, and inscribed wooden tablets.
Ancón Yacht: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Ancón Valley on Peru's coast, just north of Lima. There is a high shell mound with deep stratified layers containing baskets, chipped leaf points, cultivated plants, shell fishhooks, string, twined cloth and baskets, and wooden tools. The site dates between 2500-2000 BC.
ancestor bust: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small painted apelike busts that were the focus of ancestor worship in Egypt's New Kingdom. Many were of limestone or sandstone, with some smaller examples made of wood and clay.
ancestor busts: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small painted apelike busts that were the focus of ancestor worship in Egypt's New Kingdom. Many were of limestone or sandstone, with some smaller examples made of wood and clay.
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.
annular ring nail: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A nail with sharp-edged ridges that lock into wood fibers and greatly increase holding power
annuli: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: sing. Annulus
CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: Annual growth rings or increments in mollusk shell, fish vertebrae, tooth cementum, or wood.
anthracology: CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of human interactions with the plant environment. Wood charcoal from archaeological sites is studied by microscope and statistically analyzed.
Anyathian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Pleistocene industry of stone tools in terrace deposits of the upper Irrawaddy River in Burma. The culture was characterized by primitive pebble tools (choppers, chopping tools) and a poor flakes made of silicifed tuff and fossil wood. The earliest assemblages may be of Middle Pleistocene date and the industry may have continued into the early Holocene. The Early Anyathian had single-edged core implements associated with crude flake implements. In the Late Anyathian, smaller and better made core and flake artifacts are found.
appliqué: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Decoration or ornament applied to or laid on another material, as metal on wood or as embroidery on cloth.
archaic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Archaic, Archaic period, Archaic tradition
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: A term used to describe an early stage in the development of civilization. In New World chronology, the period just before the shift from hunting, gathering, and fishing to agricultural cultivation, pottery development, and village settlement. Initially, the term was used to designate a non-ceramic-using, nonagricultural, and nonsedentary way of life. Archaeologists now realize, however, that ceramics, agriculture, and sedentism are all found, in specific settings, within contexts that are clearly Archaic but that these activities are subsidiary to the collection of wild foods. In Old World chronology, the term is applied to certain early periods in the history of some civilizations. In Greece, it describes the rise of civilization from c 750 BC to the Persian invasion in 480 BC. In Egypt, it covers the first two dynasties, c 3200-2800 BC. In Classical archaeology, the term is often used to refer to the period of the 8th-6th centuries BC. The term was coined for certain cultures of the eastern North America woodlands dating from c 8000-1000 BC, but usage has been extended to various unrelated cultures which show a similar level of development but at widely different times. For example, it describes a group of cultures in the Eastern US and Canada which developed from the original migration of man from Asia during the Pleistocene, between 40,000-20,000 BC, whose economy was based on hunting and fishing, shell and plant gathering. Between 8000-1000 BC, a series of technical achievements characterized the tradition, which can be broken into periods: Early Archaic 8000-5000 BC, mixture of Big Game Hunting tradition with early Archaic cultures, also marked by post-glacial climatic change in association with the disappearance of Late Pleistocene big game animals; then Middle Archaic tradition cultures from 5000-2000 BC, and a Late Archaic period 2000-1000 BC. In the New World, the lifestyle lacked horticulture, domesticated animals, and permanent villages.
armor: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: arms, armour, body armor
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Protective clothing with the ability to deflect or absorb arrows, bullets, lances, swords, or other weapons during combat. There are three main types: 1) armor made of leather, fabric, or mixed materials reinforced by quilting or felt, 2) mail, of interwoven rings or iron or steel, and 3) rigid armor of metal, plastic, horn, wood, or other tough material, including plate armor of the Middle Ages' knights. Armor was used well before historical records were kept by primitive warriors. The first was likely made of leather hides and included helmets. It was found that in the 11th century BC, Chinese warriors wore 5-7 layers of rhinoceros skin. Greek heavy infantry wore thick, multilayered linen cuirasses in the 5th century BC. Armor is found along with arrows, clubs, hammers, hatchets, and other weaponry and is often ornamented. The defensive armor, the shield, and thorax, were called hopla, and people wearing them were called hoplites.
Armorico-British dagger: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Breton dagger
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of bronze dagger found in the ESSEX I Phase of the early Bronze Age (c.1700-1500 BC) in southern Britain which has similarities with examples from Brittany. It has a flat triangular blade, lateral grooves, and six rivets for attaching the blade to the hilt. Sometimes a small tang or languette is present to assist securing the blade to the hilt. Traces of wooden and leather sheaths have been found with some blades; the hilts were probably of wood and in the case of an example found in the Bush Barrow, Wiltshire, were inlaid with gold tacks.
arrow straightener: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A stone with a regular, straight groove on one face. It is thought to have been used to smooth wooden shafts of arrows, so the name is misleading.
atlatl: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: atl-atl, spear thrower
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A New World version of a spear-throwing device, used by the Aztecs and other peoples of the Americas. It consisted of a wooden shaft used to propel a spear or dart and it functioned like an extension of the arm, providing more thrusting leverage. Atlatl weights are objects of stone fastened to the throwing stick for added weight. These may be perforated so that the stick passes through the artifact, or they may be grooved for lashing to the stick. In western North America it was the main hunting weapon from about 6500 BC till 500 AD.
atlatl or atl-atl: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: spear thrower
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A New World version of a spear-throwing device, used by the Aztecs and other peoples of the Americas. It consisted of a wooden shaft used to propel a spear or dart and it functioned like an extension of the arm, providing more thrusting leverage. Atlatl weights are objects of stone fastened to the throwing stick for added weight. These may be perforated so that the stick passes through the artifact, or they may be grooved for lashing to the stick. In western North America it was the main hunting weapon from about 6500 BC till 500 AD.
Australian Small Tool Tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A mid-Holocene tool industry of the Australian Aborigines that appeared some 3000-4000 years ago when those peoples began to use a new ensemble of small, flaked stone tools (although adze flakes first appeared possibly 2000 years earlier). The types consisted of backed blades and flakes, unifacial and bifacial points, and small adze flakes. There are some regional distributions of tools, including Bondi points, geometric microliths, Pirri points, and Tula adzes. All except the Bondi points and geometric microliths were still in use as parts of wooden weapons and tools at the time of European contact. The industry has close parallels in the islands of Southeast Asia, especially in the microliths of southwestern Sulawesi from 4000 BC.
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.
ax: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: axe
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: One of the last major categories of stone tool to be invented, around the end of the last Ice Age in the Palaeolithic. A flat, heavy cutting tool of stone or metal (bronze) in which the cutting edge is parallel to the haft and which might have the head and handle in one piece. Its main function was for woodworking (hewing, cleaving, or chopping trees) but it was also used as a weapon of war, as the battle-ax. There are many forms of ax, depending on the different materials and methods of hafting. The word ax" is now used instead of celt. "Hand-ax" is used to denote the earlier implement which was not hafted. In Mesolithic times stone axes were usually chipped from a block of flint and could be resharpened by the removal of a flake from the end. In the Neolithic axes were polished and often perforated to aid hafting. Axes are now usually iron with a steel edge or blade and fixed by means of a socket in the handle. Smaller lighter ones are called hatchets."
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.
bît hilani: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bit hilani
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: An architectural type describing a pillared porch, usually of wood. A bit hilani is a wooden-pillared portico or 1-3 columns at the top of a short flight of steps at the entry to reception suites. At one end of the portico there was a staircase to an upper story, leading to a reception or throne room. There was usually an adjoining staircase to the roof and a varying number of retiring rooms. It was a standard palace unit, first found at the Syrian site of Tell Atchana with a date of mid-2nd millennium BC. It was adopted by the Syro-Hittites and Assyrians. Another fine example of bit hilani is the Kaparu Palace at Tall Halaf.
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."
Balawat: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tell Balawat
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of ancient Imgur-Enlil, east of Mosul in northern Iraq. Excavators have found the palace of Shalmaneser II and a pair of great bronze gates (now in the British Museum). These huge wooden gates were part of a set of three with evidence of the campaigns of Assurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III. They were decorated with horizontal bands of metal 11 inches high, each modeled by a repoussé process, with a double register of narrative scenes. The bronze doors from the Assyrian town portray the course of Shalmaneser's campaigns and undertakings in rows of pictures. Balawat was the country retreat of the Assyrian kings in the first half of the 9th century BC.
Bann flake: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bann point
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A term variously used by different authorities, but at its minimum it is simply a kind of leaf-shaped flake found widely amongst the later Mesolithic assemblages of Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, one component of the BANN CULTURE. More strictly, Peter Woodman defines them as large flakes having no significant tang, with light retouch, either as elongated or laminar forms less than 3.2cm across, or as leaf-shaped forms which are broader and have only very peripheral retouch at the butt.
bar hammer technique: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: soft hammer technique, cylinder hammer technique
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A stone-flaking technique using a bone, antler, wood, or other relatively soft material as a hammer to remove small, flat flakes from a core during flint knapping. These flakes have a characteristically long, thin form with a diffuse bulb of percussion.
barbed dowel pin: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A wooden pin used to align parts, act as a pivot, or permit disassembly or separation
barbican: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: antemural
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: An outer fortification or defense to a city, castle, fort, or settlement, especially a double or single tower erected over a gateway or bridge. It often served as a watch tower. The term was also used for a temporary wooden tower or bulwark.
Barche di Solferino: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age Polada culture settlement on Lake Garda, northern Italy, dating to the 2nd millennium BC. Finds include wooden vessels, wheels, and a dugout canoe -- all preserved by the mud. The houses were raised off the ground with timbers.
bark beater: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: a stone, wood, or other hard material which was used in the Precolumbian period to soften bark for making clothing or architecture
barrel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A cylindrical container, often of wood, that holds liquids
basal-looped spearhead: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of leaf-shaped socketed spearhead of the European middle Bronze Age which has two small holes or loops at the base of the blade, one either side of the socket. It is assumed that these were to assist in securing the metal spearhead to the wooden shaft, but they might also have been used to tie streamers of some kind to the top of the spear.
baton: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: billet, percussor
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A soft" hammer used to strike flakes from a stone core often made of antler bone or wood."
battering-ram: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An ancient military engine" used for smashing in doors and battering down walls. It consisted of a beam of wood with a head of iron -- originally a ram's head but later in the form of a ram's head -- and swung by chains from an overhead scaffolding. It had a roof to protect those working it from the missiles of the garrison."
beater: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In music, a wooden or metal object used to provide a rhythm by striking another object; otherwise, A general tool used to beat objects with.
Bergen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Port city of southwestern Norway, originally called Bjørgvin, and founded in 1070 AD by King Olaf III. About 1100, a castle was built on the northern edge of the Vågen harbor, and Bergen became commercially and politically important; it was Norway's capital in the 12th and 13th centuries. Excavations in the Bryggen, the harbor area, have revealed a sequence of levels that illustrate the area's evolution from the 11th century onwards. The levels have been accurately dated by a series of fires which occurred at various stages of Bergen's history. Waterlogged conditions have preserved many of the timber buildings, streets, and quays. The 11th-century houses and warehouses were on piles and had sills at ground level, while jetties became popular in the Hanseatic period (14th and 15th centuries). The excavations revealed a remarkable collection of imported pottery from all over Europe as well as quantities of leather and wooden objects. Parts of three trading ships or freighters were also found, their timbers having been re-used in the buildings.
Bersu, Gerhard (1889-1964): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A German archaeologist who emigrated to Britain in the 1930s and introduced methods such as area excavation of settlement sites, as at Little Woodbury and on the Isle of Man.
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.
bill hook: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A tool used to cut or split wood.
billet: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: baton, percussor
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A soft" hammer used to strike flakes from a stone core often made of antler bone or wood."
birch-bark manuscript: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: birch-bark beresty
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Early Russian letters and documents scratched onto thin pieces of birch-bark, dating to the 11th-15th centuries AD. They were first found in 1951 in Novgorod by A. Artsikhovski and form a very important source of information as no other documents earlier than the 13th century had survived because of frequent fires in the wooden cities of Old Russia. The manuscripts are quite well preserved from layers of organic materials.
birdstone: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bird-stone, bannerstone, boatstone
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A class of prehistoric stone objects of undetermined purpose, usually resembling or shaped line a bird; carved bird effigies. These polished stone weights occurred in the cultures of the Archaic tradition (8000-1000 BC) and later cultures in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. They were probably attached to throwing sticks or atlatls to add weight and leverage.
birdstone or bird-stone: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bannerstone, boatstone
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A class of prehistoric stone objects of undetermined purpose, usually resembling or shaped line a bird; carved bird effigies. These polished stone weights occurred in the cultures of the Archaic tradition (8000-1000 BC) and later cultures in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. They were probably attached to throwing sticks or atlatls to add weight and leverage.
Biskupin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Iron Age defended settlement of the Lusatian culture of c 550-400 BC, on a former island in Lake Biskupin, northwest Poland. The island site was ringed by a breakwater of piles and fortified by a rampart of timber compartments filled with earth and stones. Inside were more than 100 wooden cabins, which were all erected within a year, arranged along parallel streets made of logs. Up to 1200 people may have been housed there. Workshops for craftsmen in bone, bronze, and horn have been excavated. Waterlogged ground preserved the structures.
bison: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: The name of two species of wild oxen, the European bison or wisent and the American bison or buffalo. Only a small number of European bison now exist, bred from zoo specimens, and in a protected state in forest of Lithuania. Two further species, now extinct, inhabited Europe and Great Britain for much of the Quaternary period. The great steppe wisent was present during both interglacials and cold period. The smaller wood wisent, was only present in Europe during interglacials. Sometimes these animals are called aurochs. In North America, a number of species preceded today's bison. One species, popularly called 'buffalo', formerly roamed in vast herds over the interior of the continent, mainly in the Rocky Mountains.
boat-shaped buildings: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, there is evidence of a variety of longhouse with bowed sides during the Viking period. The finest examples have been excavated at 11th-century Viking camps such as Trelleborg in southern Jutland. A reconstructed example there has walls made of halved tree trunks set in rows, with the curved face outwards as in stave churches. A series of angled posts around the outside acted as buttresses and gave additional support to the gabled roof with its curved ridge. The roof may have been covered in wooden shingles, thatch, or turf. There is considerable variation in boat-shaped houses, depending on function and location. Two British examples are a boat-shaped building in Hamwih and another in Bucken.
bog oak: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: The wood of an oak tree killed by waterlogging but then preserved in a black state in the peat bog, etc., which formed as a result of the wet conditions.
Bondi point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A small, asymmetric-backed point, named for Bondi, Sydney, Australia, which is a component of the Australian Small Tool Tradition. It is usually less than 5 cm long and is sometimes described as a backed blade. Some examples suggest that the points were set in wooden handles or shafts. It occurs on coastal and inland sites across Australia, usually south of the Tropic of Capricorn. The oldest examples come from southeast Australia, dating from about 3000 bc, and the most recent are 300-500 years old. The Bondi point was not being used by Aborigines when Europeans arrived.
boomerang: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A curved wooden throwing stick with a bi-convex or semi-oval cross-section, distributed widely over Australia except for Tasmania, and used for hunting and warfare. The boomerang had marked regional variations in design and decoration. Returning boomerangs were used in Australia as playthings, in tournament competition, and by hunters to imitate hawks for driving flocks of game birds into nets strung from trees. The returning boomerang was developed from the nonreturning types, which swerve in flight. Boomerangs excavated from peat deposits in Wyrie Swamp, South Australia, have been dated to c 8000 BC. Boomerang-shaped, nonreturning weapons were used by the ancient Egyptians, by Indians of California and Arizona, and in southern India for killing birds, rabbits, and other animals.
bow: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An offensive weapon for shooting arrows or missiles and used in hunting and war. It generally consists of a strip of bendable wood or other material with a string stretched between its two ends. The arrow or missile is shot by the recoil after retraction of the string. The weapon was first used in the Upper Paleolithic by the Gravettians. Some Mesolithic examples have been preserved in peat bogs, but often all that remains is an arrowhead or wrist guard.
bow and arrow: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Weapon consisting of two parts; the bow is made of a strip of flexible material, such as wood, with a cord linking the two ends of the strip to form a tension from which is propelled the arrow; the arrow is a straight shaft with a sharp point on one end and usually with feathers attached to the other end
bowsing: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bosing
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique used to locate features beneath the surface, such a buried chambers or ditches, by thumping the ground and sensing the differences between compacted and undisturbed earth. A resulting resonant sound may indicate a buried chamber or pit. It is an unsophisticated but effective method of searching for earthworks at archaeological sites, especially in chalk subsoil. Wooden mallets or lead-filled tools are examples of implements used. The verb 'bose' or 'bowse' means to test the ground for the presence of buried structures by noting the sound of percussion from a weighted striker.
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.
brown earth: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: brown forest soil, brown earths
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Brown forest soils that result from prolonged forestal conditions and which develops under mature deciduous woodland. Brown earths are thought to have covered most of the British Isles and temperate Europe under the great forests which existed during the middle of the present Interglacial. The soil type is penetrated by tree roots and actively worked by earthworms to a considerable depth. The top is well-mixed mineral material and humus. As a result of woodland cover being removed repeatedly, these soils are rare today.
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.
burin: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: graver
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A specialized engraving tool with a chipped flint or stone shaft that is cut or ground diagonally downward to form a diamond-shaped point at the tip. The angle of the point affected the width and depth of the engraved lines. The shaft of the tool was fixed in a flat handle that could be held close to the working surface. A burin had a wide rounded end for bracing against the palm of the hand and the point was guided by thumb and forefinger. A blade or flake could be formed into any one of about 20 varieties of the tool. In its most characteristic form, the working tip is a narrow transverse edge formed by the intersection of two flake scars produced by striking at an angle to the main axis of the blade. Sometimes one facet is made by simply snapping the blade, or by truncating it with a steep retouch. Burins were used to carve or engrave softer materials such as antler, bone, ivory, metal, or wood. This tool was characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic (especially Magdalenian) in the Old World and of some Early Lithic and Mesolithic cultures of the New World.
burin adze: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: non-tula adze, flake scraper
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A term sometimes used by Australian archaeologists for flake scrapers, hafted for woodworking, which are not Tula adzes
burnish: CATEGORY: artifact; lithics
DEFINITION: A polish given to the surface of an artifact, either to improve its appearance and make it more valuable or to compact it (as with clay) to make it less porous. A pot is polished, often using a spatula of wood or bone, while it is still in a leathery 'green' state, i.e. before firing. After firing the surface is extremely shiny. Often the whole outer surface of the pot is thus decorated, but in certain ceramic traditions there is 'pattern burnishing' where the outside and, in the case of open bowls, the inside are decorated with burnished patterns in which some areas are left matte. In stroke burnish, the surface is completely polished, but the marks of the burnisher, a pebble or bone slip, remain distinct. On bronze it was done to improve the appearance; even mirrors could be produced in this way. A burnisher is a metal instrument used by engravers to soften lines or efface them.
burren adze: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: burin adze, non-tula adze, flake scraper
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A term sometimes used by Australian archaeologists for flake scrapers, hafted for woodworking, which are not Tula adzes
Byblos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Gebeil, Gubla, Jubeil, Gebail, Jubayl, Jebeil; ancient/biblical Gebal; adjective Jiblite (Kubna, ancient Egyptian; Gubla, Akkadian)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient seaport on the Mediterranean coast just north of Beirut, Lebanon and one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world. Papyrus received its early Greek name (byblos, byblinos) from its being exported to the Aegean through Byblos. The English word Bible is derived from byblos as the (papyrus) book." Excavations revealed that Byblos was occupied at least by the Neolithic period (c 8000-4000 BC) and that an extensive settlement developed during the 4th millennium BC. Byblos was the main harbor for exporting cedar and other valuable wood to Egypt from 3000 BC on. Egyptian monuments and inscriptions on the site describe to close relations with the Nile valley throughout the second half of the 2nd millennium. During Egypt's 12th dynasty (1938-1756 BC) Byblos became an Egyptian dependency and the chief goddess of the city Baalat with her well-known temple at Byblos was worshipped in Egypt. After the collapse of the Egyptian New Kingdom in the 11th century BC Byblos became the most important city of Phoenicia. Byblos has yielded almost all of the known early Phoenician inscriptions most of them dating from the 10th century BC. The crusaders captured the town in 1103 but they later lost it to the Ayyubids in 1189. The ruins today consist of the crusader ramparts and gate; a Roman colonnade and small theater; Phoenician ramparts three major temples and a necropolis."
caelatura: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: From the Latin word meaning to emboss engrave" a general term for working in metal by raised work or intaglio such as engraving carving chasing riveting soldering or smelting. Similar work on wood ivory marble glass or precious stones was called sculptura."
caique: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Traditionally, small wooden trading vessel, brightly painted and rigged for sail. Found around Greece and in the Aegean.
calamus: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plural calami
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A reed or cane used by early writers, especially as an implement for scribes working on clay. Calami were usually made from reeds in Mesopotamia, but also from wood, and the point was sharpened to form a triangle. The pressure of the calamus on the clay produced the cuneiform script. Pressing lightly or firmly made longer or shorter lines.
calibration: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: calibrated dates
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method used to obtain the most accurate dating, especially with radiocarbon dating. The term refers to the adjustment of dates in radiocarbon years by means of the dendrochronological data so that a date in calendar years is achieved. Fluctuations in the amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere mean that radiocarbon dating is not completely accurate. By obtaining radiocarbon dates for wood of known dendrochronological date, a correction factor can be introduced to calibrate radiocarbon dates. Uncalibrated dates are raw dates in radiocarbon years. Accurate calibration of radiocarbon dates are not possible before 6285 BC.
cambium: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: A viscid substance lying under the bark of trees, consisting of cellular tissue in which the annual growth of wood and bark takes place.
canopic jar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: canopic vase, canopea
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An ancient Egyptian funerary ritual in which four covered vessels of wood, stone, pottery, or faience were used to hold the organs removed during mummification. The embalmed liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines were placed in separate canopic jars. The jars or urns were then placed beside the mummy in the tomb, to be reunited in spirit, subject to the appropriate spells and rituals having been performed. The earliest Canopic jars came into use during the Old Kingdom (c 2575-2130 BC) and had plain lids. During the Middle Kingdom (c 1938-1600 BC), the jars were decorated with sculpted human heads, probably depicting of the deceased. Then from the 19th dynasty until the end of the New Kingdom (1539-1075 BC), the heads represented the four sons of the god Horus (Duamutef, Qebehsenuf, Imset, Hapy). In the 20th dynasty (1190-1075 BC) the practice began of returning the embalmed viscera to the body. The term appears to refer to a Greek demigod, Canopus, venerated in the form of a jar with a human head.
capital: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In architecture, the feature that most readily distinguishes the Classical order": the top member of a column pier anta pilaster or other columnar form which supports a horizontal member (entablature) or arch above. A capital is usually made of wood or stone and its decoration was according to the Corinthian Doric or Ionic order."
Carchemish: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Europus
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient city-state near modern Jarabulus, Syria. The site was a strategic crossing at the Euphrates River for caravans in Syrian, Mesopotamian, and Anatolian trade. The great tell of Carchemish was excavated by David G. Hogarth and later by Sir Leonard Woolley and was first occupied in the Neolithic Period. Halaf ware from the Chalcolithic (5th millennium BC) was found as well as later finds of Uruk-Jamdat Nasr pottery, a product of the southern Euphrates Valley in Sumerian cities of c 3000 BC. There were also tombs from the end of the Early Bronze (c 2300 BC) and the Middle and Late Bronze Age (c 2300-1550; c 1550-1200 BC). Written records concerning Carchemish first appear in the Mari letters -- royal archives of Mari, c 18th century BC. At that time the city was a center for trading wood and shipped Anatolian timber down the Euphrates. The large fortified citadel was important under the empire of the Hittites (14th century BC) and remained so after the fall of the empire, during the period of Syro-Hittite city-states (12th-8th centuries BC). The monumental city gates, temples, and palaces all bore considerable numbers of carved reliefs and inscriptions of the period. The Hittite hieroglyphic inscriptions were of great importance in helping to piece together its history down to its annexation by Assyria in 716 BC.
cask: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A strong wooden barrel
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.
celt: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A New Stone Age tool, usually a polished, ungrooved ax or adz head or blade that would be attached to a wooden shaft. The tool, often shaped like a chisel and made of stone or bronze, was probably used for felling trees or shaping wood. Great numbers of celts have been discovered in the British Isles and Denmark and they were traded widely. Bronze Age tools of similar general design are also called celts.
Ch'u: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ch'u state; Chu
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: One of the most important independent states of south-central China between 770-221 BC, during the second half of the Chou Dynasty. It emerged in the fertile Yangtze River Valley just outside the Chinese culture of the time. It was a great military threat other Chinese states as the state was barbarian in origin. Ch'u began to expand rapidly into China proper, conquering much of present-day Honan province, and its people soon began to acquire Chinese speech and customs. From the 8th century until its destruction by Qin in the 3rd century bc Chu was the largest and most powerful of the Eastern Zhou states. Artifacts include bronze casting of fine inlaid bronzes, weapons, ritual vessels, bells, and drums, and mirrors and the state was known also for lacquer and silk. Lacquered objects range from containers to wooden effigies, musical instruments, coffins, and other wooden tomb furniture. Sites near Tung-t'ing (Yungmeng) Lake, and in Xiasi and Xinyang, but Ch'u remains are most densely concentrated at Jiangling in southern Hubei and Changsha in northern Hunana. The Ch'u capital was at Jiangling from 689-278 BC, when the city fell to Qin. The Ch'u court retreated to the Huai valley and stayed there until its final overthrow in 221 BC. Archaeological and historical sources show it to have been a distinctive, highly civilized cultural and political entity.
charcoal: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A porous black form of carbon obtained when wood is heated in the absence of air
charcoal identification: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of studying charcoal, frequently found in archaeological contexts, to identify the type of tree from which it came. Charcoal is partly burned ('charred') wood, consisting mostly of carbon, sometimes found in situ as burned timbers of buildings and other structures or in hearths, but more frequently widely disseminated through the deposits. Its transverse, radial, and tangential sections are examined, as each type of wood has a characteristic structure. The main value of charcoal identification will be for showing the use made of different resources by ancient man. Charcoal survives because carbon cannot be utilized by organism decomposition.
charred, charring: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Converted to charcoal or carbon usually by heat, organic materials may be preserved. Partial burning reduces the materials to a carbon-rich residue. In the case of wood, this residue is charcoal. Many organic materials may not retain their structure and become an amorphous residue. Charred remains are preserved on archaeological sites because carbon is relatively inert in the soil and the microorganisms which would normally break down organic material are unable to make use of this form of carbon. Charred remains are a particularly good material for radiocarbon dating.
chekan: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A special kind of striking weapon for hand-to-hand combat. It was most widespread in southern Siberia and in Central Asia in the Scythian period. The chekan is a kind of a battle ax with a thin sharp point, made of bronze. It was fixed onto a long wooden shaft which had a bronze butt at its lower end and was worn at the waist on a special belt. Chekans are quite often decorated with zoomorphic figures in the Scythian-Siberian animal style.
Chicoid: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boca Chica
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: One of the two ceramic series (the other, Meillacod) that seem to have developed out of the Ostinoid series. They originated near the type-site of Boca Chica, Dominican Republic, and then influenced much of the eastern Antilles. The Chicoid materials represent the ball game, Zemis, a variety of wood and stone carvings, and a strong Barrancoid influence is evident in the ceramics (modeled ornamentation and incision). The series first appears in c 1000 AD and continues till European contact.
chip-carving: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: chip carving
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A technique of decoration with the use of an ax, hatchet, mallet, and/or chisel, which probably originated in the Roman and Celtic world. The technique was adapted by Germanic wood-carvers to make animal ornaments and by metalsmiths of the Migration Period. This excised decoration was done by cutting from the surface triangular and rectilinear small chips. The end result was a pattern of combined V-shaped incisions, with a glittering faceted appearance. It is found in woodwork and pottery, when it has to be done before the clay is fired. False relief is a special version of this technique. Examples are the Tassilo Chalice (Kremsmünster Abbey, Austria) and the Lindau Gospels book cover (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City).
chisel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A long-bladed hand tool with a beveled cutting edge, struck with a hammer or mallet to cut or shape wood, stone, or metal.
Chivateros: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A stratified, ancient quarry/workshop site just north of Lima, Peru -- an area of coastal lomas (areas of fog vegetation). Excavations revealed a lithic flake industry as early as the Late Pleistocene, dating between 9,000 to 11,000 years ago. Wood fragments helped define a Chivateros I period of c 9500-8000 BC. There is also a red zone with some flint chips which, by comparison of artifacts of the nearby Oquendo workshop date to pre-10,500 BC. The whole industry is characterized by burins and bifaces with the upper-level (Chinateros II) containing long, keeled, leaf-shaped projectile points which resemble points from both Lauricocha II and El Jobo. Dating has been aided by the deposition of both loess and salt crust layers which suggest alternating dryness and humidity and which can be synchronized with glacial activity in the Northern Hemisphere.
Chumash: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late prehistoric and historic Native American culture originally living along the coast of southern California and speaking a Hokan language. Chumash also occupied the three northern channel islands off Santa Barbara. The major Chumash groups were the Obispeño, Purismeño, Ynezeño, Barbareño, and Ventureño, Emigdiano, and Cuyama. The Chumash were skilled artisans, made wooden-plank canoes and vessels of soapstone, as well as a variety of tools out of wood, whalebone, and other materials. They produced basketry, did rock painting, and started of clamshell-bead currency in the area. The Chumash were among the first native Californians to be encountered by the Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who visited the islands in 1542-1543.
Chuquitana: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: El Paraiso
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Preceramic site on the coast near Lima, Peru, occupied between 1800-1600 BC. The ruins reveal eight complexes of approximately 25 rooms, each built of stone. The complexes were rebuilt five or six times. Artifacts of shell, bone, stone, wood, and polished dried clay figurines have been found as well as evidence of woven cotton textiles.
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.
circumpolar cultures: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arctic Stone Age
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A group of related cultures in the most northerly (Arctic) regions of Europe, including Siberia, and North America. These peoples lived north of the region where settled farming life was possible. Although contemporary with Neolithic and Bronze Age communities farther south, the circumpolar tribes remained semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers. They adopted pottery from the farming peoples and their trade connections, making egg-shaped bowls with pitted or comb-stamped decoration. Characteristic tools were hunting and woodworking equipment, often of ground slate. Rock carvings and artifacts attest the use of skin boats, skis, and sledges which suggest long-distance trade -- especially of amber. The sites and cemeteries are usually close to water. Fishing was an important activity and they exploited food sources such as elk, reindeer, and seal.
Clactonian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An early flake-tool culture of Europe, dating from the early Mindel-Riss (Great Interglacial) of the Pleistocene epoch, which occurred from 1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago. It was named after discoveries at Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, England. A kind of concave scraper, perhaps used to smooth and shape wooden spears, is typical of the Clactonian industry. Apart from the tip of a wooden spear, the artifacts consisted of trimmed flint flakes and chipped pebbles, some of which can be classified as chopper tools. Handaxes were absent. The Clactonian seems therefore to have coexisted with Early Acheulian. Some believe that the two industries are quite distinct, while others maintain that both assemblages might have been made by the same people, and that the Clactonian could in theory be an Acheulian industry from which handaxes were absent because such tools were not needed for the jobs carried out at a particular site. Clactonian and related industries are distributed throughout the north European plain, and Clactonian tools are similar in appearance to those produced in the Soan industry of Pakistan and in several sites in eastern and southern Africa. The Tayacian industry of France and Israel is believed to be a smaller edition of the Clactonian.
cleavage surface: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: cleavage plane
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A surface formed by a separation of the rock along a natural cleavage plane or crack, esp. on quartz crystals, slate, petrified wood
cob: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Wet clay mixed with straw used in constructing walls, ovens, and other similar kinds of structure. To achieve the desired shape or form, cob was packed between wooden shuttering and allowed to dry
coffin: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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'."
coil and paddle: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A method of pottery-making involving the use of rolled clay coils to build vessel walls, followed by the welding of the walls with a decorated wooden or ceramic paddle. Parallel breaks between the coils and impressed designs on pottery fragments are evidence of this technique.
column: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In architecture, a cylindrical or slightly tapering support or pillar for some part of a building, usually made of stone or wood. There were classic orders" of columns which had specific shapes for the base shaft and capital which supported the entablature. In Gothic and Norman architecture the column was the pillar or pier supporting an arch. A column may also stay alone as Trajan's Column in Rome. A circuit of columns enclosing an open space in the interior of a building was called a peristyle."
comb: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A toothed object of wood, bone, horn, metal, etc. with a number of uses -- for hair dressing, carding wool, currying horses, compacting the weft in weaving, for decorating pottery, or as an ornament to keep the hair in place. As used for combing the hair, but not wearing, combs were found in Pompeian and Egyptian tombs and in early British, Roman, and Saxon barrows.
composite bow: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An archer's bow made of more than one material -- as wood and fiberglass -- to combine properties of strength, durability, and power. In early times, a bow of wood was reinforced on one side by layers of animal sinew and on the other side by animal horn.
compound tool: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: composite tool
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Any tool made of two or more different materials, such as a bone harpoon with stone points and barbs set in it, or a wooden arrow with a shaped stone point.
coolamon: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Australian aboriginal carrying dish made of wood or bark.
Copán: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A ruined ancient Mayan city, in extreme western Honduras near the Guatemalan border, one of the largest and most impressive sites of that civilization. Copán was an important Maya city during the Classic Period (c 300-900 AD), peaking in the 8th century with as many as 20,000 people. The site has stone temples, two large pyramids, several stairways and plazas, and a ball court for tlachtli. Most of these structures center on a raised platform called the Acropolis and are constructed in a locally available greenish volcanic tuff. Copán is particularly known for the ornate stone carving on the buildings and the portrait sculptures on its many stelae. The Hieroglyphic Stairway, which leads to one of the temples, is beautifully carved with 2500 hieroglyphics total on the risers of each of its 63 steps. During the Classic Period, there is evidence that astronomers in Copán calculated the most accurate solar calendar produced by the Maya up to that time. The site's ruins were discovered by Spanish explorers in the early 16th century and rediscovered by American traveler John Lloyd Stephens in 1839, who purchased" the site for $50. Since then much of the beautiful carving has deteriorated but the highly detailed pen-and-ink drawings of his colleague Frederick Catherwood still survive and are a great source of iconographic detail. Restoration work revealed much of Copán's political and dynastic history through the decipherment of hieroglyphic inscriptions on its monuments. A dynasty of at least 16 kings ruled Copán from about 426-822 AD; the Maya had completely abandoned the site by about 1200. Finds date from the Late Prehistoric period (c 300 BC-AD 250."
Cortaillod: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A Neolithic village site of pile dwellings on the edge of Lake Neuchâtel, and the type site of the oldest Neolithic culture in western Switzerland, with a starting date of c 3800 BC and lasting to after 2500 BC. Cortaillod is noted for the fine preservation of wood, cloth, and plant remains, and for its plain round-based pottery of Western Neolithic type. A large number of wooden and birch-bark utensils and containers have been found as well as organic remains, including fruits and nuts as well as cereals, pulses, and flax. The houses were built on wooden frames with walls of clay set on closely spaced timbers; the roof were probably thatched. The inhabitants practiced mixed farming, plus hunting and fishing. The round-based dark burnished pottery demonstrates connections with the Chassey culture of France.
crannog: CATEGORY: geography; feature
DEFINITION: An artificial island in a lake, bog, or march that forms the foundation for a small settlement and upon which a fortified structure is usually built. This structure was typical of prehistoric Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, especially during the first century AD. The island was constructed from brushwood, stones, peat, and timber, and usually surrounded by a wooden palisade. Most crannogs probably represent single homesteads. The oldest examples in Ireland have yielded early Neolithic material (Bann flakes) and others have Beaker pottery. Most of them, however, are of Late Bronze Age, Iron Age, Early Christian, or medieval. The most interesting is that in Lough Cur in Limerick.
Crickley Hill: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic causewayed camp and Iron age hillfort in Gloucestershire, southwest England. The site was used for several centuries and the ditches and banks were refurbished several times. The final Neolithic phase had deeper quarry ditches and a rampart faced with drystone walling at the front and a timber stockade at the back and a wooden fence on the top. There were two gateways and evidence of burning and large numbers of flint arrowheads indicate that the site was attacked and burnt down around 1500 BC. There is also a stone circle erected in the Late Neolithic. The site was abandoned for nearly two millennia, when it was once again used for a defended settlement. Two phases of Iron Age occupation are represented, probably falling between 700-500 BC. The earlier phase was characterized by rectangular houses and square storage huts, while the second phase had one large round house, smaller round buildings, and more small square huts, perhaps granaries. The site was burned down again c 500 bc and never reoccupied.
cylinder hammer technique: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: soft hammer technique, bar hammer technique
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A stone-flaking technique using a bone, antler, wood, or other relatively soft material as a hammer to remove small, flat flakes from a core during flint knapping. These flakes have a characteristically long, thin form with a diffuse bulb of percussion.
dabber: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A tool used in etching to distribute the etching ground over a plate of metal in the first process of engraving and, in printing from copper plate engraving and woodcuts, to spread the ink.
dagger: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A short stabbing knife which, in ancient and medieval times, was not very different from a short sword. From about 1300 the European dagger was differentiated from the sword. In earliest antiquity, it was made of flint, copper, bronze, iron, or bone. It is difficult to distinguish it from an inoffensive knife blade. Prehistoric daggers were made in flint by the Beaker Folk in the Neolithic-Early Bronze Age, about 1900 BC. Bronze dagger, tanged for wooden hilt, were imported by Beaker Folk from western Europe between 1900-500 BC. The fully developed style of the Iron Age came to be in the 1st century BC. In copper it was ancestral to the rapier, sword, spear, and halberd.
dagger-ax: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ko
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A bronze Chinese weapon in use from Shang Dynasty (c 1500 BC) to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). The earliest forms were broad and mounted at right angles to a wooden shaft through which the tang projected. Later forms had a slender blade which extended down the shaft at right angles to the main point to prevent it snapping.
damascening: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: damaskeening
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The art of incrusting one metal on another, in the form of wire, which by undercutting and hammering is completely attached to the metal it ornaments. The process of etching slight ornaments on polished steel wares is also called damascening. Although related to pattern-welding, this technique used in the manufacture of sword blades probably developed independently. First a high-carbon steel is produced by firing wrought iron and wood together in a sealed crucible; the resulting steel, or wootz, consists of light cementations in a darker matrix, and this, together with a series of complicated forging techniques at relatively low temperatures produced the delicate 'watered silk' pattern with the alternating high- and low-carbon areas. Damascene steel was very strong and highly elastic.
Dejbjerg: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A bog site in west Jutland where two pre-Roman Iron Age vehicles were found, believed to be imports from southern Gaul. They were decorated with openwork bronze, bronze masks, bosses, and lattice work. The wheels had iron tires and pegs of hard wood to act as ball-bearings.
digging stick: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A straight, often pointed, wooden tool for loosening or digging up the ground. It was used in food-gathering economies to turn up roots or burrowing animals, and in Neolithic communities for cultivation until displaced by the hoe and later (in the Old World) by the plow. It could be made more efficient by adding a perforated stone as a weight onto the shaft near the lower end.
diptych: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Double-leafed tablets of metal, ivory, or wood, attached by strings or hinges. Diptychs are common in Christian archaeology, often as alter-pieces or paintings composed of two leaves which close like a book.
Dong-son: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
Dorset: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Dorset tradition
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A prehistoric Eskimo culture that settled in the eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland around 1000 BC and lasted until 1000 AD when it was replaced by the Thule culture. The earliest manifestation, known as pre-Dorset (in some areas as Sarqaq) is represented at sites on Baffin Island and dates from c 2400 BC. The Dorset subtradition developed from pre-Eskimo Arctic Small Tool tradition. A typical site of the late Dorset subtradition is Port aux Choix 2 in western Newfoundland with house and storage pits. They hunted sea mammals and caribou. The tradition had a stone tool assemblage of end scrapers and spear points and they were also known for beautiful carvings of animals and humans in bone, ivory, and wood.
drawknife: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A knife handled at both ends used to shave wood.
drill: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A tool, usually of wood or bone, used to drill holes through or into other wood, stone, or bone artifacts.
Dublin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The modern capital of Ireland (Eire) was founded by the Vikings, or Norsemen, in the 9th century (c 831) and built on the ridge above the south bank of the river, the same spot where Dublin Castle was built. Throughout much of the Middle Ages it remained one of the foremost sea ports in the British Isles. Viking Dublin was a prosperous settlement, and excavations begun in the 1960s revealed a wealth of archaeological evidence for that period. From prehistoric times people have dwelt in the area about Dublin Bay, and four of Ireland's five great roads converged near the spot called Baile Atha Cliath (The Town of the Ford of the Hurdle"). Remarkable waterlogged conditions have preserved organic material from levels dating to between the 9th-14th centuries. The footings of wattle-and-daub and timber-framed buildings have been recovered with door posts screens and hearths as well as timber streets. There is also abundant evidence of the crafts and industries from the Hiberno-Scandinavian and Anglo-Norman periods -- woodworking metalworking hooping combmaking leatherworking and cobbling."
Early Later Stone Age: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ESLA
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: An informal designation for the microlithic late Pleistocene Stone Age industry of some sites in South Africa. One such site is Border Cave, characterized by small backed pieces, bone points, ostrich eggshell beads, and incised bone and wood.
earth lodge: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: earthlodge
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In American Midwest and East cultures, any wood structure with an earthen covering used for shelter and ceremonies. They have hard-packed floors and/or postholes which are the remains of wall and roof supports.
Easter Island: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
Ebla: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Eblaite, Tell Mardik Ebla, Tell Mardikh
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the River Orontes in northern Syria (now Tell Mardikh) which was the seat of a powerful state in the mid 3rd millennium BC, though occupied from the 4th millennium onward. It fell to Akkad c 2250 but continued to flourish. The remains and a large archive of 15,000+ cuneiform texts and fragments within a palace complex showed a high level of wealth and culture. The archive yielded evidence of the previously unknown language, a Semitic tongue now labeled Eblaite, and history of a powerful state of the 3rd millennium BC. The tablets also record many Semitic names which are used in the Old Testament of the Bible, suggesting that Eblites and Israelites interacted. Ebla was important under a dynasty of Amorites in the 2nd millennium, before being destroyed c 1600 BC by the Hittites. The city was clearly an important commercial center, exporting woolen cloth, wood, and furniture to Assur in Mesopotamia and Kanesh in Anatolia. The culture was contemporary with the late Early Dynastic city-states and early Akkadian rulers of southern Mesopotamia.
effigy mound: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
effigy pipe: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Small pipes carved in one piece from stone and polished, representing birds, fish, and other animals, particularly form the Hopewell culture of the Eastern Woodlands of the United States during 300 BC-200 AD. In other areas and periods of the US, larger stone effigy pipes were carved in a variety of zoomorphic and human forms, such as the human effigy pipes of Adena Mound, Ohio.
Egolzwil: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of Neolithic sites around former Lake Wauwil in Switzerland from the earliest phase of the Neolithic in that area. Most of them belong to the Cortaillod culture and have well-preserved organic material. The site of Egolzwil 4 had ten rectangular wooden houses placed close together. Food remains include cereals, lentils, beans, and flax, and wild strawberries and chestnuts; animal remains include both domesticated and wild animals, and duck, salmon, perch, and carp from the lake. The earliest settlement, Egolzwil 3 dated to the late 5th or early 4th millennium BC.
elephant: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: Either of two species of the family Elephantidae, characterized by their large size, huge head, columnar legs, and large ears. The Indian elephant was regularly employed for show and war as early as the Bronze Age in China. Wild herds survived in the Near East into the 1st millennium BC, when they were hunted to extinction for their ivory, and in North Africa, where they supplied Hannibal with his war elephants. Forms now extinct, especially the mammoth, were an important source of food in the Palaeolithic period, and are portrayed in cave art. Living elephants are now confined to Africa. The African elephant formerly occupied a far larger area, as is attested by skeletal evidence and cave paintings in North Africa. The reduction in its range is probably due to the combined effects of climatic change, human hunting, and cattle-grazing. The straight-tusked elephant, Elephas antiquus, apparently adapted to the open deciduous woodlands of interglacials in Europe, but became extinct at the end of the Ipswichian interglacial. Dwarf forms of the straight-tusked elephant evolved on islands of the Mediterranean.
elouera: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A backed flake with triangular sections, like orange segments, which have polish from worked wood along the straight edge. These artifacts are part of the Australian Small Tool Tradition.
Encanto: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A series of sites on the central coastline of Peru, including Chilca, which constitute a cultural phase which began to exploit maritime resources and cultivation, c 3750-2500 BC. Stone artifacts include milling stones, small percussion-flaked projectile points, and simple scrapers as well as bone and wooden tools. The changing subsistence patterns resulted from the decreasing availability of lomas vegetation.
end scraper: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: endscraper, grattoir
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A stone tool formed by chipping the end of a flake of stone which can then be used to scrape animal hides and wood. Its steeply angled (acute) working edge was used for flensing or softening hides and to dress skins. It appeared in Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic period. It differed from side scrapers in that it had a rounded retouched end and was often made on a blade. A side scraper had a retouched working edge along the long edge of the flake.
epigraphy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: epigrapher
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The study of ancient inscriptions and letter forms on buildings, statuary, tablets, and other durable materials and objects (such as wood, bone, pottery, stone). An expert in such studies is an epigrapher or epigraphist. Such texts are often the only surviving records of extinct cultures and chronicle ancient events, beliefs, and lists of kings. Epigraphy encompasses inscriptions from the earliest complex societies to those of modern states. Epigraphy sometimes does not include the study of texts painted on ceramics or written on papyrus or wood, which are regarded as within the studies of ceramics and papyrology, respectively. Epigraphy deals both with the form of the inscriptions, and with their content: study of the form enables assessment of the development of language and the alphabet; their content is, however, usually more important for the light thrown on the social, political, religious, and economic life of the ancient world. The science includes decipherment, translation, explanation, and evaluation of the inscriptions.
fardo: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In Peruvian archaeology, the package" formed by a human mummy wrapped together with various funerary offerings (amulets etc.) usually in several yards of material. Often a false head of wood or straw or metal mask was fixed to top of a fardo."
Fayyum, al- or Fayum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Fayoum, Fayum region, ancient Ta-she, She-resy, Moeris
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large fertile depression in the Libyan Desert, southwest of Cairo near the west bank of the Nile, with two prehistoric cultures dating to c 5000 BC and c 4500 BC. These early settlements were of the first food-producing peoples of Egypt. Emmer and barley were cultivated and cattle, sheep, and pigs bred. Saw-edged sickle flints, mat-lined silo pits, and saddle querns have been found and ax heads were of flaked flint or ground pebbles. Hollow-based flint arrowheads, bone dart tips, stone maceheads, and bone harpoons were used for hunting and fishing. Artifacts of special note include a threshing flail and a wooden sickle set with flint teeth. Pottery was in use and beads of ostrich eggshell and seashells of both Mediterranean and Red Sea types were imported. Lake Qarun had fish which were a delicacy for Egyptians throughout the ages. In Middle Empire (c 2000 BC), the pharaohs (Amenemhet III) engaged in huge irrigation and drainage schemes and the area was famous for orchards and gardens. After a period of decline, the Ptolemies in turn took an interest in the area, establishing a number of small towns there, the papyrus archives which have survived in great quantity and excellent state of preservation. The region incorporates archaeological sites dating from the late Palaeolithic to the late Roman and Christian periods (c 8000 BC-641 AD), including Shedet (later Crocodilopolis), chief center for worship of the crocodile-god Sebek, near which al-Fayyum town now lies.
figurine: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small carved or sculpted figure of a human or animal, usually of clay, stone, wood, or a metal. A figurine's purpose is often religious, either as an object of worship itself or as a votive offering to a god. They were made in prehistoric Europe from the Upper Palaeolithic onwards, though they became less common in Bronze Age.
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.
fire hardening: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The exposure of a wooden implement to fire in order to dry out the wood but not char it. The tool becomes harder and more useful.
fire hearth: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flat piece of wood upon which a stick (drill) is twisted vigorously to start a fire.
fire-dog: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: andiron
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An instrument consisting of an iron bar held horizontally at one end by an upright support, used to ensure the proper burning of a fire. A pair of these was put at each side of the hearth or fireplace to support burning wood; the end of a log could rest on the crosspiece, which was supported by two uprights. Decorative iron examples come from La Tene Iron Age contexts, mostly in graves. In a kitchen fireplace, the upright support might hold a rack in front for the spit to turn in.
fire-setting: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The softening or cracking of the working face of a lode of quarrying stone, to facilitate excavation, by exposing it to a wood fire built against it. The fire shattered the outcrops of rock.
firestarter: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: firestarter kit
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A wood tool having a base with drilled holes and a stick that is rubbed through the holes in the base to produce enough friction to give a spark.
fish hook: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Artifact of two basic types: bait hook and lure hook. Varied in form throughout the Pacific, they are made of bone, shell, tortoise shell, or wood.
Flag Fen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Bronze Age settlement site on the Cambridgeshire fens (island) of England. It was reached by a timber track from the mainland at Fengate and was occupied c 1000-700 BC. Artifacts include flint tools, bronze dagger, shale bracelet, wooden items, and pottery.
flintknapping: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: flint-knapping, knapping
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The technique of striking flakes or blades from a large flint stone (core or nucleus) and the shaping of cores and flakes into tools. The most commonly used stone was flint (chert), a hard, brittle stone, commonly found as nodules in limestone areas, that breaks with a conchoidal fracture. Flintknapping began with the simple striking of one stone against another. Later methods include the use of antler and wooden strikers for both direct and indirect percussion, and bone and antler pressure-flaking tools.
fluted point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: fluted projectile point
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A projectile point with a distinctive longitudinal groove left after removal of a channel flake; a long, medial channel notched to the base of a flake. The channeled flake is removed from one or both faces by striking the specially prepared base sharply with a piece of wood or bone. The sharp ridges of the flutes were ground smooth near the base of the point, to prevent them from cutting the bindings when the point was inserted into a notched foreshaft. These points have extreme symmetry, careful flaking, and the removal of a long, parallel and shallow flake from one or both sides. Fluted points are characteristic of the Palaeoindian peoples of North America such as the Clovis and Folsom projectile points.
fort: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: fortress, fortification
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A fortified place or position prepared for defensive or protective purposes and usually surrounded by a ditch, rampart, and parapet. Forts were first built on hilltops, from late Neolithic to Roman times. Even farmhouses had earthworks of ditch, rampart, and wooden stockade built against raiding parties. At first, stockades were built on hilltops without massive earthworks. The origins of fortification in the Greek and Roman world were probably influenced by eastern Mediterranean civilizations and were in the major cities of the Greek Bronze Age. In ancient days, fortifications hindered the best attacking troops for months and even years.
ge: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ko
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A dagger-ax, the characteristic weapon of the Chinese Bronze Age during the Shang Dynasty and then made from iron from the Zhou Dynasty onwards. The dagger-shaped bronze blade, usually with a flat tang but occasionally with a shaft hole, was mounted perpendicular to the wooden shaft. The blade had a crosspiece parallel to the shaft to help hold it in place. Bronze Age blades and non-functional jade replicas of blades often appear as mortuary gifts in Shang tombs. The earliest ge yet known have come from Erlitou, c mid-2nd millennium BC. In the Eastern Zhou period the ge was sometimes combined with a spear, the ge blade at right angles to the spearhead, to form a ji. The ji was in existence by the late 6th or early 5th century BC. They are chopping implements.
gesso: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: gypsum, chalk
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Material consisting of a layer of fine plaster to which gilding was often attached using an adhesive. It was a fluid, white coating composed of plaster of Paris, chalk, gypsum, or other whiting mixed with glue, applied to smooth surfaces such as wood panels, plaster, stone, or canvas to provide the ground for tempera and oil painting or for gilding and painting carved furniture and picture frames. In Medieval and Renaissance tempera painting, the surface was covered first with a layer of gesso grosso (rough gesso) made with coarse, unslaked plaster, then with a series of layers of gesso sottile (finishing gesso) made with fine plaster slaked in water, which produced an opaque, white, reflective surface.
Glastonbury: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A lake village in Somerset, England, which has yielded more data than any other site about life in the British Iron Age. The village was built on a wooden platform keyed to the underlying peat and was enclosed by a timber palisade. Inside were more than 90 round huts with clay and plank floors. They had central hearths for the fires. Cobbled paths and alleyways ran between the huts. Preservation was so good that the excavators recovered baskets, iron objects (including currency bars and tools with their original hafts), dugout canoes, fragments of spoked wheels, lathe-turned bowls, basins and tubs decorated with La Tène art motifs, farming and fishing gear, basketry and wickerwork, and evidence of potting, weaving, and metalworking from the village. Occupation started from the 3rd/2nd to the 1st century AD, just before the Roman conquest. On the high ground nearby is an Iron Age earthwork, Roman pottery, and a Dark Age structure dated to the 6th century AD. Glastonbury, like Cadbury Castle, is linked in folklore with King Arthur. A rotary quern was invented here and eventually became universal. The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary at Glastonbury was perhaps the oldest (c 166 AD) and certainly one of the richest in England.
Gordium: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Gordion
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of the Phrygians in the 8th century BC, on the bank of the Sakarya River in central Anatolia (now Turkey). Gordion was surrounded by a massive mud-brick wall and a monumental gateway and was dominated by about 10 important buildings built on the megaron plan, and a palace complex. Outside the city gate was a cemetery of nearly 80 large tumuli, which has yielded rich finds from the 8th-6th centuries BC. The great royal tomb investigated was once identified as King Midas, who allegedly committed suicide when the Cimmerian nomads sacked the city in 685 BC. The tomb also contained inscriptions in the Phrygian script, nine tables and two screens of wood, three bronze cauldrons, 166 other bronze vessels, and 146 bronze fibulae. Traces of linen and woolen textiles were found on the bed, and traces of purple cloth were also found on the throne in another rich tumulus. Occupation of the site continued into Roman times.
gród: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pl. grody; Burgwalle, Herrenburgen, hradiste
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Any of numerous early medieval fortified enclosures of east-central Europe. They have earthen ramparts, often with wooden reinforcement. Large one are in Gniezno and Mikulcice and Poland has the most enclosures of this type.
grain: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The direction or texture of fibers found in wood or leather or stone or in a woven fabric
grattoir: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: end scraper
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A flaked stone scraping tool, usually flint, in which the working edge is at the end of the blade or flake and lies across its long axis. It is characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic and was probably used to work wood and clean hides; from the French gratter 'scratch, scrape'.
graver: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: burin
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A stone tool manufactured from a flake by chipping (pressure-flaking) it on two edges at one end so as to leave a sharp point. Gravers were to cut or score soft materials such as bone, shell, wood, and antler; perhaps for punching leather and other purposes. The term also refers to a type of metalworking tool which comprises a number of subtypes, though all are hand-held, hard, and sharp and are used to cut or engrave metal. Such a graver has a metal shaft that is cut or ground diagonally downward to form a diamond-shaped point at the tip. The angle of the point affects the width and depth of the engraved lines; the point is guided by thumb and forefinger.
Greenland: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The world's largest island; the Inuit are believed to have crossed from North America to northwest Greenland, using the islands of the Canadian Arctic as stepping stones in a series of migrations that stretched from 4000 BC to 1000 AD. Several distinct cultures are known, including the Sarqaq (c 1400-700 BC), Dorset (c. 800 BC-1300 AD), and others such as the Dundas (Thule) and Inugsuk. The Icelandic sagas and histories tell of failed attempts to colonize Greenland in the 970s and how the exiled Erik the Red eventually succeeded in 985. Archaeologists have located several early farmsteads, where the occupants began some cultivation and animal farming, supplementing their diets by hunting and fishing. Erik's own farm at Bratthalio consisted of a main long house with thick walls of stone and turf. Inside there was a central conduit and animal stalls with partitions made of whale scapulae. There were also four barns and outbuildings and the remains of a small U-shaped chapel with a wooden gable which was built by Erik's wife after her conversion to Christianity around 1000. From Greenland voyages were made to the coast of America, and Erik's son was one of the first explorers to reach 'Vinland', which was probably Maine.
Grimes Graves: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Grime's Graves
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The oldest known Neolithic flint mine in England, in Norfolk, with the remains of around 350 mine shafts. The high-quality flint had three banks: floorstone, wallstone, and topstone. The products, mainly ax blades, were roughly chipped to shape at the site and were then traded in semi-finished condition. The miners used flint tools, deer's antlers as picks or wedges, and animal shoulder blades as spades. Excavation was probably by wooden shovel (a product of the polished ax and chisel) or possibly the shoulder blades of oxen. It is estimated that 50,000 picks made of red-deer antler were used during the 600 years of activity in the mine, which began about 2300 BC. In one shaft, the miners made a chalk statuette of a fat pregnant woman and a phallus of chalk; this practice, a fertility cult, was used to bring fruitful results in further mining. There are differing dates for the use of the mine shafts.
groma: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Roman surveying instrument which traced right angles. It was made of a horizontal wooden cross pivoted at the middle and supported from above. From the end of each of the four arms hung a plumb bob. By sighting along each pair of plumb bob cords in turn, the right angle could be established. The device could be adjusted to a precise right angle by observing the same angle after turning the device approximately 90 degrees. By shifting one of the cords to take up half the error, a perfect right angle would result. It was used for laying out the grid patterns of towns and forts, for road construction, and for centuriation.
guardapua: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Pointed wooden implement, possibly used in ritual blood-letting
Guitarrero Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A stratified cave site of long occupation in the Callejón de Huaylas in northern Peru. It was occupied in the Preceramic period (c 12,500-6000 years ago) and continued through later ceramic periods, showing domesticated lima and common beans by c 8000 BC. A wide variety of artifacts, lithic and organic, in Guitarrero I (10,610 @ 360 bc) contains flaked tools similar to the Ayacucho complex and Tagua-Tagua. Stemmed points similar to those in Lauricocha II were found in the same level. There is evidence that the site was occupied by hunter-gatherers and that the subsistence was transhumance. The dates of some human bones, if dated correctly, represent the earliest human remains yet found in South America. Guitarrero II has produced a series of radiocarbon dates covering the period c 8500-5700 BC and contains bone and wood artifacts, basketry an loosely woven textiles, and the willow-leaf projectile point.
Guran, Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in western Iran with at least 21 occupation levels dated c 6500-5500 BC. In the earliest aceramic levels, there were remains of wooden huts, probably from a semi-permanent winter camp. In later levels with pottery, there are mud-brick houses and evidence of farming, goat domestication, and barley cultivation.
Gwisho: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of mounds and hot springs in western Zambia with evidence of intense Late Stone Age (Zambian Wilton) occupation from about 5000-3500 years ago. The sites are of particular importance because of the preservation of organic materials in the spring deposits. Grass-lined hollows have been interpreted as sleeping places. Among the wooden artifacts in the assemblage were bows, arrowheads, fire-drills, and digging sticks. The microlithic chipped stone industry is of the Zambian Wilton type. Graves at the sites yielded some 35 Khoisan skeletons. The economy was based on hunting game but also on a variety of vegetables.
Hacilar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small but important site in the lake region of southwest Turkey, with a Late Neolithic and early Chalcolithic (c 5600-4500 BC). The aceramic early levels have some radiocarbon dates in the 7th millennium BC. The houses were of mudbrick or wood and daub on stone foundations, with an upper story of wood. They were finished internally in plaster, rarely painted. Crops included barley, emmer, and lentils and bones of sheep, deer, and cattle were also found. The site was abandoned and reoccupied in the Late Neolithic, early in the 6th millennium BC, when it had more substantial houses, monochrome red to brown pottery, and some use of copper. Querns, mortars and braziers were fitted into mud plaster floors, while recesses in the walls acted as cupboards. The kitchen was separated from the living rooms and upper stories were used as granaries and workshops. Female figurines of a unique style were also made. The latest phase of this period was burnt c 5400 BC and when the site was reoccupied it was smaller; this settlement was also burnt c 5050-5000 BC. The Hacilar (Chalcolithic) period had a fortified settlement, characterized by boldly painted red on white pottery.
Haddenham: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic long barrow in Cambridgeshire, England, important for its being an example of the type of wooden structures which may have existed in non-megalithic long mounds of northern Europe. The site was covered by fen peat, thus preserving the original barrow in waterlogged conditions.
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.
half-life: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: half-value period, radioactive half-life
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The time taken for half of a given amount of a radioactive substance to decay into a non-radioactive substance. It is also defined as the time taken for half the quantity of a radioactive isotope in a sample to decay and form a stable element. It is the basis of radiocarbon and other radiometric dating methods. This decay rate, expressed as a statistical constant, is different for each isotope. If a sample, such as a piece of wood, has half of the original amount of radiocarbon remaining, then a time equivalent to the half-life has passed since it died. The half-life of radiocarbon is 5730 ? 40 years, while the half-life of radioactive potassium, used in potassium-argon dating is 1.3 billion years. The half-life in effect determines the general age range over which a radiometric dating method is potentially useful.
half-timbered: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Constructed of wood framing with spaces filled with masonry, or by stone, rubble, or mud brick.
hang-t'u: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: hangtu
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A type of rammed-earth construction of walls and foundation platforms for buildings developed by the Chinese from Late Neolithic (Longshan) period and Shang Dynasty (c 1600-1027 BC), notably at An-Yang. It was also used for shaft tombs in the Shang and Zhou (Chou) periods. Earth was packed between wooden forms in successive thin layers, each layer being pounded down before the next was added. Hangtu walls have been found at only two Late Neolithic sites, Chengziyai and Hougang. Much of the Great Wall of China was originally built of rammed earth.
hard water effect: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A potential source of artifact contamination in radiocarbon dating. When material that is radiocarbon-dated has been buried, groundwater may have percolated into it. Groundwater frequently contains dissolved calcium carbonate, where it has passed through limestones. Such carbonate may crystallize within the sample to be dated. As a result, carbon from a source very much older than the sample may be included. Dates from material that has been contaminated in this way will be too old. Samples such as wood and charcoal may be treated with hydrochloric acid to dissolve away the crystallized carbonate, eliminating the problem. Shell samples, which are themselves made of calcium carbonate, cannot be so treated. If the hard water effect is suspected and corrections are not made, the dates should be reported as maximums only.
Heavenly Horse, Tomb of the: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A 5th century AD mounded tomb of the Silla Kingdom in Kyongju City, Korea. There was an internal wooden chamber with a lacquered wooden coffin of a male dressed in gold crown and with very rich grave goods.
Hedeby: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Haithabu, Haddeby
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Viking settlement in northern Germany and one of the earliest Scandinavian urban centers, established in the late 8th century. It is situated on a fjord, defended by a large earth rampart. Between 800-1050, Hedeby was a major trading center and many imported luxury goods have been found, especially in graves. Excavation has revealed many wooden buildings, well preserved in waterlogged conditions, and evidence of industrial and commercial activity. It served as an early focus of national unification and as a crossroads for Western-Eastern European and European-Western Asian trade.
Heijo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Nara Palace
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of an 8th century AD palace and the capital of the Ritsuryo state in Nara Prefecture, Japan. The seat of the government from 710-784, the grid-city plan includes remains of some 500 buildings, including royal residences, administrative quarters, warehouses, and workshops. Of particular interest are over 20,000 inked thin rectangular pieces of wood (mokkan), which served as office memoranda and labels attached to tributes from the provinces.
helmet: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Protective headgear that goes back almost as far as evidence for warfare. The basic function was to protect the head, face, and sometimes the neck from the cutting blows of swords, spears, arrows, and other weapons. The Assyrians and Persians had helmets of leather and iron, and the Greeks created bronze helmets, some of which covered the entire head, with only a narrow opening in front for vision and breathing. The Romans developed several forms of helmets, including the round legionary's helmet and the special gladiator's helmet, with broad brim and pierced visor, giving exceptional protection to head, face, and neck. The troops on the Royal Standard of Ur wear leather helmets. The Blue Crown worn by pharaoh in the New Kingdom of Egypt was a war helmet. One type covered with boar's tusks was current among the Mycenaeans. More obviously for parade than war are the bronze examples from the European Late Bronze and Iron Ages. Among the Villanovans the cinerary urn was often covered with the helmet of the dead warrior. Several fine examples from Britain are decorated with Celtic art. The New World has yielded helmets made of gold and of wood encrusted with turquoise mosaic. The term 'helm' was applied by both Saxons and Normans, in the 11th century, to the conical steel cap with a noseguard, the common head piece of the day. Helmet is the diminutive of helm.
henge: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: henge monument
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A circular, prehistoric religious enclosure constructed of wood or stones and enclosed by ditches, banks, and walls -- and found only in the British Isles. Henge monuments are characteristic of the megalithic period in southern and eastern England in particular. To the west and north, henges often enclose a stone circle. There are 13 such examples, including Avebury and Stonehenge. The circular area is delimited by a ditch with the bank normally outside it. Class I henges have a single entrance marked by a gap in the earthworks, while those of Class II have two such entrances placed opposite each other. Avebury had four entrances. Many henges have extra features such as burials, pits, circles of upright stones (Avebury, Stonehenge) or of timber posts (Durrington Walls, Woodhenge). Henges are often associated with Late Neolithic pottery of grooved ware, Peterborough and Beaker types, dating from the centuries after 2500 BC. Occasional examples were still in use in the Bronze Age, e.g. Stonehenge. Henges are believed to have been focal points for 'ritual' activity, but there is much controversy over their design. They range in size from c 30 meters to more than 400 meters in diameter (Avebury, Durrington Walls).
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.
hoe: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mattock
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: One of the oldest tools of agriculture, a digging implement consisting of a blade set at right angles to a long handle (haft). Early hoes had stone or wooden blades. Examples made from antler go back to the Mesolithic. Most early hoes were used by the farming peoples of the Neolithic. Hoes succeeded the digging stick and gave rise to the plow. The digging stick, precursor of most agricultural hand tools, was simply a sharpened branch sometimes weighted with a stone.
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).
Hopewell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hopewellian culture
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An agricultural subculture of the Woodland Stage Complex settling in Ohio and Illinois around 100 BC and lasting to 500 AD. It was one of the most advanced Indian cultures of North America, with conical or dome-shaped burial mounds, large enclosures with earthen walls, and fine pottery with corded or stamped decoration. Farming was practiced and trade brought exotic raw materials from many parts of the continent. Hopewell is noted for its minor art objects, such as carved platform pipes, ornaments cut out of sheet copper or mica, Yellowstone obsidian, distinctive broad-bladed points, and ceremonial obsidian knives -- often found in rich burials of the Hopewell rulers. Between 200 BC-600 AD, the Hopewell Interaction Sphere" flourished in the Midwest which constituted Hopewell religious cults and distinctive burial customs associated with a widespread (through trading) art tradition. The culture which had both agriculture and hunting-gathering succeeded the Adena culture."
Hopewell point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Distinctive broad-bladed points of an agricultural subculture of the Woodland stage complex settling in Ohio and Illinois around 100 BC and lasting to 500 AD
horsehoof core: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A steep-edged, often large, domed core with flat based striking platforms, heavily step-flanked around their margins. Both very large and smaller varieties are found commonly on Pleistocene sites in most areas of Australia and on some mid-Holocene sites and they are considered characteristic of the Australian Core Tool and Scraper tradition. They were chopping tools mainly used in wood-working. The step-flaking could have resulted from repeated striking to remove flakes.
horsehoof cores: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A steep-edged, often large, domed core with flat based striking platforms, heavily step-flanked around their margins. Both very large and smaller varieties are found commonly on Pleistocene sites in most areas of Australia and on some mid-Holocene sites and they are considered characteristic of the Australian Core Tool and Scraper tradition. They were chopping tools mainly used in wood-working. The step-flaking could have resulted from repeated striking to remove flakes.
house of the dead: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A type of wooden building above a tomb or connected to a grave, widespread in Denmark and Germany, but also found in other areas of northern Europe during the Neolithic period.
Hypsithermal: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A Holocene climatic optimum in the Eastern Woodlands, equivalent to the Altithermal segment of the Holocene Epoch (Holocene is 10,000 years ago-present), dated on the basis of pollen studies. The Hypsithermal Climatic Interval began about 9,000 years ago and ended about 2,500 years ago. It has been divided into smaller units beginning with the Boreal. The Hypsithermal follows the Pre-Boreal and precedes the Sub-Atlantic intervals. It was a time of comparatively warm climatic conditions which resulted in the elimination of many cooler plant and animal refuges and the extinction of some species. In many parts of the world, pine forests gave way to forests dominated by oak during the Hypsithermal. Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures are contemporaneous with Hypsithermal events in both the New and Old Worlds.
icon: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A kind of portrait of a sacred person with a formal pose and exaggerated spiritual expression which spread through the Christian world from the mid 6th century AD onwards. Usually icons are painted on wood and housed in jeweled and highly ornate mounts. Some became so powerful as objects of devotion as to cause a rift in the Christian church, known as the iconoclastic dispute, where icons were banned in the Byzantine empire from AD 726, although the Latin church continued to allow their use. They remain a central component of the material culture of the Orthodox church.
indirect percussion: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A technique of stone-tool manufacture in which flakes are removed from a flint core in a way which causes less wasteful shatter of the material than direct percussion. The hammer or hammerstone does not strike the flint but rather a wood, antler, or bone punch, usually with a prepared edge, so that the manufacture of flakes is more controlled.
inscribed: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Term used to describe marks or lines forming a design, motif, image, or pattern of some kind that can been cut into stone, metal, bone, wood, ceramic, or other fairly soft material.
inscription: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: Something that is inscribed; the act of inscribing. It is writing or any type cut into or raised upon a hard surface -- clay, wood, stone, metal, etc. -- and therefore endures. Inscriptions on coins, medals, seals, currency notes, etc., may be done with symbolic picture writing, abbreviations, or phonetic alphabets.
Itazuke: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Itatsuke
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early agricultural village in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, that is the type site for Early Yayoi pottery. The site had extensive paddy field remains. The pottery was associated with wooden hoes and semilunar stone harvesting-knives. There are also Early Yayoi graves and Middle and Late Yayoi occupation levels. Other artifacts recovered from the site include spindle whorls and bronze weapons.
Jarmo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small aceramic Neolithic to ceramic Neolithic village site in the foothills of the Zagros mountains of northern Iraq. Jarmo was used to explain the origins of food production by Robert Braidwood, as the site dates to the later 7th millennium BC and there was carbonized wheat and barley. Its radiocarbon dates place it amongst the world's earliest food-producing settlements. Goat and dog bones show domestication. The first 11 of its 16 levels had no pottery, though clay-lined pits were baked in situ. Square houses of pisé were built with clay ovens and grain pits which included flint and obsidian chipped stone tools, stone bowls, and clay figurines. Flaked and ground stone were freely used for tools and utensils. It is the type site of the Jarmoan culture.
Jericho: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tell es-Sultan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important site in the Jordan Valley of Israel with a continuous sequence from the Natufian to the Late Bronze Age. Camping occupation of the Mesolithic c 9000 BC developed into the pre-pottery Neolithic c 8350-7350 BC when there was a walled town of mud-brick houses, which is amongst the earliest permanent settlements known. There was at least one massive stone tower. To the succeeding PPNB levels dated 7250-5850 BC, belongs the series of famous plastered skulls. In c 1580, the Hyksos settlement, with its tombs, plastered glacis, woodwork, basketry, pottery, and bronze, was destroyed by the Egyptians. The Late Bronze Age town captured by Joshua's Israelites has left very few traces. There was some reoccupation during the Iron Age.
jet: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A hard black dense form of coal, a lignitic fossil wood. It has been used for decorative purposes (beads, buttons, etc.) in the British Bronze Age as it accepts a strong polish and has good workability. Ornaments of jet are found in ancient tumuli. A well-known British source of jet is at Whitby in Yorkshire.
Käpää: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of the late Mesolithic Narva culture, stratified in a peat bog in Estonia. The thin occupation deposits on slight wooden platforms have radiocarbon dates of c 2900-2400 BC. A rich assemblage of bone tools is associated with fragmentary Narva pottery.
Kalambo Falls: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the Zambia-Tanzania border at the southeast corner of Lake Tanganyika which has yielded one of the longest archaeological sequences (100,000 years) in sub-Saharan Africa and important pollen and radiocarbon data. The ancient lake deposits preserved objects from the Stone and Iron Ages. The oldest deposit contained Late Acheulian tools, dating to the late Middle Pleistocene. Wooden objects, food remains, and evidence that man was already using fire have been found. Pollen preserved in the deposits indicates that the local late Acheulian climate was cooler and wetter than that of today. The sequence continued with Sangoan (radiocarbon dated to 50,000-40,000 BC), followed by Early Middle Stone Age (Lupemban, 30,000 BC) industries related to those of the Congo, then Magosian, and a microlith-using Late Stone Age culture of Wilton type, and finally (from mid-4th century AD) remains of early agricultural and iron-using peoples who were probably of Bantu stock. Early Iron Age occupation of the Kalambo basin appears to have been established by the 4th century AD and to have continued through much of the 1st millennium.
Kamegaoka: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Obora culture, Kamegaoka culture
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A waterlogged Jomon site in Aomori prefecture in northern Honshu, Japan, best known for its Final Jomon deposits with elaborate pottery and lacquered wooden dishes. The Kamegaoka complex, named after the site, is characterized by the distinctive pottery style, production of hollow figurines, stone and bone personal ornaments, salt-making out of sea water, and fishing and sea-mammal hunting with harpoons. It was partly contemporary with the Early Yayoi Culture.
Karako: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village site in Nara prefecture, Japan, of the Yayoi culture that is the type-site for the western Yayoi pottery chronology. Over 100 dwelling and storage pits contained pottery covering the whole span of the Yayoi period in this area. Organic materials were well-preserved, including baskets, wooden agricultural tools, a bundle of rice plants, melon seeds, nuts, and bones of wild boar, deer, dogs, and cattle. A bronze bell casting mold indicated craft production.
Kauri Point: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Maori Pa near Tauranga, New Zealand, which has revealed several phases of Classic Maori ditch and bank fortification from c 1500-1750 AD. The interior of the pa contained large numbers of sweet potato storage pits. The swamp preserved many artifacts, including wooden combs.
Kenniff Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A sandstone rock shelter in south central Queensland, Australia, one of the oldest sites yet discovered in the continent and containing one of the longest and most complete technological sequences for any Australian site. The basal strata contain an industry of core and flake scrapers dated by radiocarbon to c 14,000-13,000 BC. These tools were later joined by small blades, microliths, delicate points, woodworking flakes, and (around 2400 BC) by backed blades. Stone tools from the base to the 3000 BC levels also included steep-edge flake scrapers and cores, including horsehoof cores. Between 3000-500 BC, there occurred an unusually wide range of Australian Small Tools, including Pirri points, geometric microliths, Bondi points, and Tula adze flakes, as well as grinding stones. Ochre pellets, some use-striated, were scattered through all levels. There is stenciled art going back 19,000 years. It was the first evidence of Pleistocene occupation in Australia, establishing the two-phase sequence in current use for the continent.
Kerbschnitt: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: chip carving, chip-carving
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The technique of carving or decorating wood by use of an ax or hatchet.
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.
kero: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A large wooden flared beaker, painted with black, white, and light red designs of pumas, condors, and other creatures on a dark red ground color. Keros decorated with incised geometric patterns were used in Inca times, but examples with scenes painted in lacquer are of post-Conquest date. In pottery the shape started earlier and was especially popular in the Tiahuanaco culture.
Kintampo Neolithic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Kintampo
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An industry of Ghana in West Africa with the first evidence of animal husbandry and food production, and dated to 3600 BP. This savanna woodland and forest margin in the basin of Black Volta River also had ceramics, flaked stone tools, and scored stone rasps that may have been used for grating or grinding.
knapping: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The working of stone by applying force to its surface -- by percussion or pressure -- to produce a tool. A knapper is one who manufactures stone artifacts, especially by chipping. This technique of striking flakes or blades from a hard, brittle rock, such as flint or obsidian, id done by means of short, sharp blows delivered with a hammer of stone, bone, or wood. Knapping was used to fashion stone tools and weapons, such as blades and arrowheads, in the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley and was also applied to making beads from agate and carnelian.
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.
Koster: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of long occupation in west-central Illinois, known as one of the first multidisciplinary endeavors of new archaeology; the findings serve as a benchmark for defining the Archaic period in the Midwest. The site is unusual for its long stratigraphic sequence of Archaic and Woodland settlements, dating from c 8700 bp to 1000 AD. Hunter-gathers and, later, farmers, settled at this location on the Illinois River to exploit the fertile river bottom. The site served variously as a workshop for stone tools, a deer-butchering camp, and possibly as the site for one of the earliest villages in North America. Stoneground adzes, manos and metates are dated c 6400 BC. In later levels, there is evidence of increased hunting efficiency (the replacement of the atlatl by the bow and arrow) and of agriculture (squash and pumpkin), and possibly Mississippian association. The site also contributed to the methodology of excavation, including approaches to deeply buried sites, and the use of flotation as a technique.
Kremlin: CATEGORY: structure; site
DEFINITION: The fortified citadel of medieval Russia. The term also applies to those in medieval Slavic towns. The most famous and best-preserved is the one in Moscow, which is a rare stone-built example. Within it lie a variety of palaces, churches and state buildings in a range of styles spanning the 14th-18th centuries. Archaeological work has revealed that in 1156 Prince Dolgoruky built the first fortifications -- ditches and earthen ramparts topped by a wooden wall with blockhouses. The origin of the word kremlin is disputed; some authorities suggest Greek words for citadel" or "steepness others the early Russian word krem, meaning a conifer providing timber suitable for building. The fortified enclosure of the Kremlin, the symbol of first Russian and later Soviet power and authority. Its crenellated red brick walls and 20 towers were built at the end of the 15th century, by Italian builders hired by Ivan III the Great.
La Tène: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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).
labret: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: labrum
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A lip plug or ornament inserted in an incision in the lower lip, often made of shell, bone, ivory, metal, stone, wood, or pottery. Sometimes a succession would be worn, each larger than the predecessor. Labrets indicated the eminence of the wearer, e.g. women of high rank of the northwest coast of North America. Although styles vary and labrets were particularly popular in Mesoamerica, they occur in artifact inventories from the Arctic to the Andies.
lacquer: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: lacquer ware
CATEGORY: artifact; ceramics
DEFINITION: The resin of the sumac tree, used as a coating to harden and strengthen manufactured items. This varnishing substance was used from prehistoric times and was indigenous to southern and central China. Applied in many coats to a core made of wood, fabric, paper, baskets, leather, ceramics, etc., it forms a tough and durable protective surface, resistant to water and capable of a high polish. In China lacquered vessels were made as early as the Shang dynasty. Lacquer is often colored red or black.
lacquer ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Ornate wooden domestic and funerary vessels common in China from the Shang Dynasty (14th century BC) onwards, manufactured by repeatedly coating a wooden or fabric pre-form with lacquer in order to build up a rich shiny surface.
Lagozza: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lagozza di Besnate
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Late Neolithic lake village settlement in Lombardy, Italy, dated to c 3600 BC. Remains of wooden pile dwellings exist in the type site of the Lagozza culture, characterized by finely made black-burnished carinated bowls. Decoration is rare, consisting of radiating lines on the lower walls or scratched cross-hatched triangles. Instead of proper handles, simple and multiple perforated lugs were used, including the flûte de pan. The culture is related to, and possibly derived from, Chassey (France) and Cortaillod (Switzerland). Spindle whorls and loom-weights show textile production. The culture was established in the north and spread slowly down the Adriatic side of Italy to the Marche and Ripoli in the Late Neolithic, and to Ariano by the Copper Age, surviving there to give rise to the Apennine culture of the Bronze Age. Copper axes are among the earliest copper items of northern Italy.
lake dwelling: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: lake village
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A type of Neolithic settlement found common in prehistoric Europe in areas with many lakes, such as Switzerland, Germany, and north Italy. Such a settlement was formerly on the edge of a lake but is now buried by lakeshore sediment or underwater. They should properly be labeled lakeside villages, since in most cases they were constructed on the shore and not on stilts over the water, as was formerly believed. They were, however, frequently constructed on timber platforms and subsequently rising water levels in the lakes have preserved these platforms and much other wooden material, as well as artifacts of other organic substances. Cultures in which lake villages were common include Chassey, Cortaillod, Horgen, and Polada.
Lake Mangakaware pa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Maori lake-edge fortification (pa) in the Waikato District, North Island, New Zealand. The site has produced on the of the most complete Classic Maori settlement plans known, dated 1500-1800 AD, with remains of palisades, a central open space (marae), and many wooden objects.
landnam: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A Danish word meaning 'land taking', used to describe a common form of early agriculture in which an area of woodland was cleared and cultivated (which has been identified in the pollen record). The land was later abandoned and was taken over by weeds, finally reverting to woodland. Its regeneration began with the birch, a rapid colonizer of areas cleared by fire. Landnam has been recognized in pollen analysis by changes in the pollen spectra: the drop in tree pollen, the appearance of grass and plantain pollens, a subsequent increase in the latter, and an eventual reappearance of the tree pollen. Landnam range in date from Neolithic to Bronze Age.
larnax: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plural larnakes
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Minoan-Mycenaean clay or terra-cotta coffin. This kind of coffin, resembling a rectangular wooden chest, enjoyed a brief popularity in the eastern Greek region c 530-460 BC. The sarcophagus was often crudely painted on the sides with funerary or religious scenes. 'Clazomenian' examples were painted in imitation of contemporary vase styles. The term was also used for a closed box, seen in a royal tomb at Vergina, and in art. A third use of the term was for a bathtub made of a fabric containing straw.
Larnian culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Mesolithic culture, named after Larne, Ireland, and found only on sites close to coasts and estuaries in western Scotland and eastern Ireland. It is characterized by shell middens and the early toolkits include leaf-shaped points made on a flake, the oldest unambiguous implement in Ireland, and scrapers. Some are dated to 6000 BC. Later assemblages contain more flakes than blades and include tranchet axes and very small scrapers. . More recent work casts doubt on the antiquity of the people who were responsible for the Larnian industry; association with Neolithic remains suggests that they should be considered not as Mesolithic but rather as contemporary with the Neolithic farmers. The Larnian could then be interpreted as a specialized aspect of contemporary Neolithic culture. Lake and riverside finds, especially along the River Bann, show a comparable tradition. A single radioactive carbon date of 5725 +/- 110 BC from Toome Bay, north of Lough Neagh, for woodworking and flint has been cited in support of a Mesolithic phase in Ireland.
latchlifter: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An early kind of key, found in Roman and early medieval contexts, it is simply a bent piece of iron rod with an expanded end that could be pushed through a hole in a wooden door to raise a catch-bar on the inside.
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.
Lehringen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Palaeolithic site near Bremen in north Germany (Lower Saxony), where organic muds revealed a pollen diagram of the last Interglacial. In these muds, a yew wood spear broken into several pieces was found. It passed between the ribs of the skeleton of an Elephant of Elephas antiquus type. The tip was finely shaved to a point and fire-hardened; the spear was evidently used for thrusting.
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.
letter: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A type of writing preserved in the archaeological record: sometimes the originals have survived in the form of papyri, ostraca, and wooden boards, but in many cases stelae, inscriptions, or temple archives incorporate transcriptions of letters. Letters were also written to the dead; relatives of deceased often sought to communicate to them by writing letters, asking for help or forgiveness.
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.
Levanna projectile point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Levanna projectile points are usually associated with Late Woodland and Contact Period occupations in southern New England (ca. 700-300 Years B.P.). Common material types associated with this point include quartz, quartzite, hornfels, and basalt. Non-local cherts were also used in the manufacture of this point type. The Levanna point type is characterized by the equilateral triangular form and concave base.
lian: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Chinese term for lacquered wooden box in which toilet necessities or food such as cooked cereals are kept.
lintel: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A horizontal stone slab, beam, or wooden block forming the top of a door or window; a horizontal architectural member spanning and usually carrying the load above an opening.
longhouse / long house: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: In Neolithic times, an elongated (oblong) wooden post house that appeared in central Europe with the first farming communities within the Early Neolithic Bandkeramik cultures, about 4500-3000 BC, as well as the later Iron Age, about 100 BC-500 AD, of north-central Europe. It also applies to the Late Woodland cultures of northeast North America, about 1300-1600 AD, especially the Iroquois and Huron. Life in the longhouse had ended by 1800, but the meeting room of the contemporary tribe continues to be called the longhouse. In North American antiquity, longhouses were divided into living quarters for a number of groups. In Europe, structures may have been multipurpose buildings for dwellings and livestock stables. Among the most famous are those of the Linear Pottery culture, which reach lengths of up to 40 meters. Archaeologically, the two halves of the long house are often distinguished by the existence of a hearth in the living quarters, a central drain, and sometimes stalls in the byre. The purpose of the European long house was to keep stock during the wet winter months, and at the same time to provide dwelling for the farmers. In Upper Palaeolithic times, the long house was an elongated above-ground structure of up to 100 meters in length, with a central series of hearths. The walls and roofing were probably supported by wooden poles and large mammal bones. Remains of these have been found in Kostenki, Pushkari, and Avdeevo.
Lupemban: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Lupembian
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A stone industry of the Lower Palaeolithic of west-central Africa, developed from a Sangoan predecessor and characterized by tools appropriate for rough woodwork. Lupemban is found in northern Angola and southern Zaire and an important dated site is at Kalambo Falls on the Zambia/Tanzania border. In contrast with the Sangoan, Lupermban assemblages are marked by the fine quality of their bifacial stoneworking technique on elongated double-ended points, large sidescrapers, and thick core-axes. The industry spans from before 30,000 BC until c15,000 BC.
Lupembian / Lupemban: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stone industry of the Lower Palaeolithic of west-central Africa, developed from a Sangoan predecessor and characterized by tools appropriate for rough woodwork. Lupemban is found in northern Angola and southern Zaire and an important dated site is at Kalambo Falls on the Zambia/Tanzania border. In contrast with the Sangoan, Lupermban assemblages are marked by the fine quality of their bifacial stoneworking technique on elongated double-ended points, large sidescrapers, and thick core-axes. The industry spans from before 30,000 BC until c15,000 BC.
mace: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small clublike weapon, usually of stone, crafted to fit snugly in the hand, for pounding. It often had a perforated head and was attached to a shaft of wood (or ivory or horn), often tapering towards the end that was gripped. Many maceheads have been excavated from Predynastic and Early Dynastic cemeteries in Egypt. In medieval times, it was made of iron and used for breaking defensive armor.
Maglemosian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Maglemosan
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The first Mesolithic culture of the north European plain, found in Scandinavia, the northern Balkans, northern Scotland, and northern England, and lasting from c 9000/8000-5000 BC. The way of life was adapted to a forest and river/lakeside environment. Much has been preserved in waterlogged deposits. Thus more is known about the Maglemosian industry than about other tool industries of the same period. The tool kit included microliths, woodworking tools such as chipped axes and adzes, picks, barbed points, spearheads of bone or antler, and fishing gear. Wooden bows, paddles, and dugout canoes have been found, and the dog was already domesticated. The Maglemosian industry was named after the bog (magle mose, big bog in Danish) at Mullerup, Denmark, where evidence of the industry was first recognized. The Maglemosian industry was also highly artistic, with decorative designs on tools and decorative objects, such as pendants and amulets.
magnetic surveying: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: electromagnetic surveying
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique for the location of archaeological features adapted from techniques used in geological surveying. It is based on the fact that features with thermo-remanent magnetism, like hearths or kilns, or features with a high humus content, like pits or ditches, and iron objects, distort the earth's magnetic field from the normal. Instruments such as the proton magnetometer or the differential fluxgate gradiometer are used to measure those disturbances, and by plotting the results, a map of the features can be built. The ways in which the different types of feature distort the magnetic field vary, though they can all be picked up on the same instrument. Hematite or magnetic, present in most clays, have a small magnetic effect when unburnt, since the grains point in random directions and cancel each other out. Once heated to about 700? C or more, the grains line up, increasing the magnetic effect and causing an anomaly in the magnetic field. This thermo-remanent magnetism is also the basis for magnetic dating. The presence of modern iron as in wire fences can cause problems with this technique of location; if the area to be surveyed is clearly crossed with power lines or fenced with iron posts, a resistivity survey may be more suitable. The method of surveying used requires a grid to be measured out on the site and readings to be taken at regular intervals. The nature of the site may prevent such a grid being laid out, for instance if it is heavily wooded, and magnetic survey may not be possible on these sites. It is one of the most commonly used geophysical surveying methods.
Maiden Castle: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the largest and most famous Iron Age hillforts in Britain, located in Dorset, England. The oldest structure on the hilltop is a Neolithic causewayed camp (c 2000-1500 BC), followed after an interval by an earthen long barrow, which is partly built over the ditches of the earlier camp. Occupation resumed in the Early Iron Age (c 5th century BC) with the construction of a hillfort (c 250 BC) which was later extended to fortify the entire hill. Maiden Castle was at that time a permanent settlement with stone and wooden huts linked by surfaced trackways. Sometime before 50 BC, the site came under the control of the Belgae and became the tribal capital of the Durotriges, with coinage and imported Gallo-Roman luxuries. During the Roman conquest, the fort was sacked by Vespasian's legion (43-44 AD), and the slain defenders were buried in a cemetery near the east gate. The Romans moved the remaining population to a new site at Durnovaria (Dorchester), and the hillfort was abandoned until the 4th century AD when a Romano-Celtic temple was built there.
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.
maize: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: corn
CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: A tall cereal grass widely grown in Mexico, South America, and the US which originated as a staple food in Mexico about 9000 years ago. A field of maize is a milpa. No wild maize appears to exist today. The plant originated in the Central Mexican Highlands, where pollen belonging to maize, or one of its near relatives, has been found in cores from Mexico City, dated to between 60,000-80,000 bp. The earliest macrofossils of maize appear in the Tehuacan Valley in Mexico between 7000-5000 BC. These early finds have very small cobs and kernels and it has been suggested that they come from wild maize. Archaeologically, the oldest cultivated maize in Mexico is from the Coxcatlan period in the Tehuacan Valley (4800-3500 BC), and maize appears in the caves of Tamaulipas, northeast Mexico, around 3200 BC. In South America, the oldest direct evidence comes from the Valdivia culture of Ecuador, around 3000, though maize phytoliths were found in the preceding Vegas period, c 6000 BC. It was in fairly general use in the southwestern US by 1000 BC, though it did not reach the eastern Woodlands until about the time of Christ. It was an important early domesticated food plant in the New World and one of the trio which provided a balanced diet for early American farmers (the other two being beans and squash).
mammoth-bone house: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A kind of dwelling built by people of the Upper Palaeolithic in central and eastern Europe between c 25,000-12,000 bp, especially in areas where wood was scarce. The remains of such a structure would typically have a circular or oval arrangement of woolly mammoth bones and tusks, with a central hearth and occupation debris. The bones and tusks were the structure's support. External to the structure may be hearths, pits, and debris. Examples are found in Poland and the former Soviet Union. Mammoth bones were used to build the winter structures for some of these peoples and the mammoth fat used to keep the fires burning.
Manching: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Large oppidum of the late Iron Age in Bavaria, Germany, near Ingolstadt, dated to the La Tène period c 200 BC. It was one of the largest oppida in Europe. Manching, at that time adjacent to the Danube, may have been a regional market. The defense was an elaborate construction consisting of four-mile-long walls built of timber and stones and including four gateways. The organization of the settlement was preplanned, with streets up to 30 feet wide and regular rows of rectangular buildings in front of zones containing pits and working areas; other areas were enclosed for granaries or horse stalls. The site was divided into work areas for particular crafts, such as wood, leather, and iron working. Coins were minted and used on the site. There is evidence of a violent end to the settlement c 50 BC.
mantelet: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Great wicker or wooden shields, sometimes mounted on wheels, used in sieges by archers as a protective screen.
marae: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: malae
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A stone temple of Eastern Polynesia, comprised of courtyards and stone platform or ahu, where ceremonies took place. The court was walled, paved, or terraced. Marae are among the important remains on Easter Island, the Hawaiian Islands (especially Heiau), and the Tuamoto, Society, Cook, Austral, and Marquesas Islands. Ancestral forms probably go back to Early Eastern Polynesian settlement, c 500 AD. Figures of the gods were kept at the marae, often in special wooden containers housed in portable shelters. Large numbers of thin, tall wooden slabs were set up on the marae; they were carved with openwork geometric designs and topped with figures of birds, human beings, or spiked projections. Marae are especially characteristic of 1200-1800 AD. The term 'marae' also refers to an open space within a village in Tonga, Samoa, or New Zealand.
Mawangdui: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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."
mazer: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A drinking bowl, often wooden.
Meare: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A lakeside village of the Iron Age on the Somerset Levels in southwest England with groups of mounds similar to those at nearby Glastonbury. The settlement consisted of about 40 round houses built on desiccated peat and with timber and brushwood floors. It was surrounded by a palisade and occupied from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD. The pottery dates from about 60 BC until about the time of the Roman invasions of the 1st century AD. The site was reoccupied during the 4th century. The Abbot's Tribunal, Glastonbury, houses some of the objects discovered during excavation.
Mesolithic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: mesolithic, Epipaleolithic, Middle Stone Age
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A time period in human history beginning with the retreat of glacial ice c 8500 BC and the changing climatic conditions following it; a development in northwestern Europe that lasted until about 2700 BC. This Middle Stone Age followed the Upper Paleolithic and preceded the Neolithic. It was a period of transition in the early Holocene between the hunter-gatherer existence and the development of farming and pottery production. Glacial flora and fauna were replaced by modern forms and the flint industries are often distinguished by an abundance of microliths. The equipment was designed for fishing and fowling as well as hunting and often included many tiny flints, or microliths, that were set in wooden shafts and hafts, and stone axes or adzes used for woodworking. Forests grew in Europe and people modified their lives accordingly. In the Near East, which remained free of ice sheets, climatic change was less significant than in northern Europe and agriculture was practiced soon after the close of the Pleistocene. In this area the Mesolithic period was short and poorly differentiated. In Britain the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition did not come until around 4000 BC. The dog was domesticated during the Mesolithic. The term is used widely only in European prehistory.
mesquite: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: A small spiny leguminous tree or bush with hard wood often burned in a barbecue to flavor food and whose beanlike pods are high in sugar.
microclimate: CATEGORY: term; geography
DEFINITION: The specific and uniform local climate of a small site or habitat brought about by hills, slopes, woodland, lakes, or other features of the landscape. These features modify the general climate of the region. The term also is applied to any climatic condition in a relatively small area, within a few meters or less above and below the Earth's surface and within canopies of vegetation. The microclimates of a region are strongly tied to the average moisture, temperature, and winds of the climate and to latitude, elevation, and season. Weather and climate are sometimes, in turn, influenced by microclimatic conditions, especially by variations in surface characteristics. Wet ground, for example, promotes evaporation and increases humidity. The drying of bare soil, on the other hand, creates a surface crust that inhibits ground moisture from diffusing upward, which promotes the persistence of dry atmosphere. Microclimates control evaporation from surfaces and influence precipitation and so are important to the hydrologic cycle (the circulation of the Earth's waters). The effect of soil types on microclimates is considerable. Also strongly influencing the microclimate is the ability of the soil to absorb and retain moisture, which depends on the composition of the soil and its use.
microlith: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: pigmy stone
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Any of various very small stone tools varying in size from 1-5 cm -- mainly thin blade or blade fragments with sharp cutting edges, usually geometric in shape and set into a wooden handle or shaft or the tip of a bone or antler as an arrow point. They were shaped by abrupt retouch into various shapes like triangles and crescents. Microliths were produced during the Later Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic and were either struck as blades from very small cores or were made from fractured blades using the microburin technique. They are characteristic, for example, of Azilian culture of the Mesolithic. Microliths represent both a versatile and an economic use of raw material: just as blades yield more cutting edge than flakes per unit weight of raw material, so bladelets improve yet further this advantage, by a factor of something over 100 compared to core tools.
Middle Mississippi culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A part of the Woodland culture in the central Mississippi valley and its tributaries that came into existence around 700 AD and lasted until the historical 16th-17th centuries. The most notable features are elaborate pottery, large and often fortified villages, and ceremonial centers with temple platforms and courtyards. From its origin, these cultures spread outwards until they had overrun most of the eastern United States. In the north, the Mississippi culture encroached on and blended with the Woodland cultural tradition. Important sites are Etowah (Georgia), Moundville (Alabama), Spiro (Oklahoma), and Cahokia (Illinois).
Middle Missouri Tradition: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Plains Village Indian
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: One of three broad cultural traditions (along with Central Plains and Coalescent) which constitute the Plains Village Indian or Plains Village Pattern of c 1000-1500 AD. There were many permanent farming village sites along the central Missouri River trench in North and South Dakota. The culture is characterized by a specially developed strain of cold-resistant, quick-maturing maize, by the bison scapula hoe, and by permanent dwellings in the form of the semisubterranean timber-and-earth lodge. Often palisaded and constructed on high promontories overlooking a river, villages of over 100 dwellings are quite common. Ceramics, though Woodland derived, bear evidence of some Mississippian influence, such as shell tempering. The tradition disappeared, due to drought and/or alien incursions, by 1500. Historic tribes such as the Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa are thought to be the cultural heirs to the tradition.
Mississippian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: 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.
moai: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Colossal stone figure found on Easter Island carved between c 600-1500 AD. There are 800-1000 known quarried from the volcanic tuff at Rano Raraku. They can be up to 10 meters tall and weigh 28 tons. Many were put in ahu on the coast, on top and facing inland. The moai were probably ancestor figures. Most of the moai were knocked over during internal strife on the island. The term moai also refers to small wooden statue of uncertain religious significance, also carved on Easter Island. The figures are of two types, moai kavakava (male) and moai paepae (female). They were sometimes used for fertility rites but were more often used for harvest celebrations. During the time between these public festivals, the statues were wrapped in bark cloth and kept in private homes.
mokkan: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: In Japan, wooden tablets from the Han dynasty Chinese sites. There were used for keeping track of taxes, work, etc. and have there are thousands in the Heijo Palace and other administrative offices. The United Silla of Korea and Ritsuryo state in Japan, c 8th century AD, adopted their use.
Monte Verde: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early Preceramic site in southern Chile, c 13,000 bp, one of the few pre-Clovis occupations in the New World. There are huts with shallow clay-lined pits, and tools of wood, bone, or stone. There was a dated layer with evidence of occupation c 33,000 bp, but that is disputed.
mortar: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Part of an ancient device for processing plant foods; usually used with a pestle. It was a stone or wooden receptacle with a cup-shaped depression. Mortars were frequently made of special rocks, which might be traded over considerable distances. The mortars of the medieval period in Europe have been studied at length; the first stone mortars occur in 8th century Dore-Stad and have origins in the Moselle Valley, while the French Carolingians at this time were using pottery mortars.
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.
mortuary house: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A wooden or stone copy of an actual dwelling, buried under a barrow or kurgan, and used as a tomb for the dead. There is sometimes an overlap between the definitions of mortuary house and mortuary enclosure, but very different ritual ideas may be involved. A mortuary house often contains only a single corpse, and serves primarily as a sepulcher rather than as a charnel house in which bodies were accumulated. Grave goods might be included and, in some instances, an earthen mound (barrow) was raised over the mortuary structure.
motte: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: motte and bailey, motte-and-bailey castle
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: An elevated mound of earth, part of the motte-and-bailey castle, which was crowned with a timber palisade and surrounded by a defensive ditch that also separated the motte from a palisaded outer compound, called the bailey. Access to the motte was by means of an elevated bridge across the ditch from the bailey. This structure appeared in the 10th and 11th centuries between the Rhine and Loire rivers and eventually spread to most of western Europe. The motte was usually made of earth, but sometimes of stone. Attached to it may be one or more baileys, which are enclosures surrounded by ramparts or stone walls. Motte should not be confused with moat; the latter was a ditch. The motte was formed from the soil originally dug from the ditch. It was the mound on which the wooden castle of the motte and bailey was built in early Norman times. Motte-and-bailey was the type of wooden castle first erected by Norman conquerors and it was an expedient, quickly erected, medieval fortification. Several classic examples of motte and bailey castles are illustrated in the Bayeaux tapestry, with wooden towers and palisades on top of the motte.
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."
Mount Sandel: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Mesolithic site in Londonderry, Ireland, with circular wooden hut foundations with central hearths. There was a lithic industry of microliths, tranchet axes, and polished stone axes.
Mudejar: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A unique style of art and architecture, part Gothic, part Islamic, which developed in the Iberian peninsula during the Moorish occupation of the 12th-15th centuries. The style, marked by the frequent use of the horseshoe arch and the vault, distinguishes the church and palace architecture of Toledo, Córdoba, Seville, and Valencia. Many of the greatest Mudejar buildings were constructed by Moorish workmen for Christian masters, and were executed in brick, tile and wood. One of the finest examples is the great Mudejar palace of the Alcazar in Seville.
Mullerup: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The type site in Denmark for the Maglemosian tool culture of northern Europe, situated in the Magle Mose (or big bog") in Zealand. The Maglemosian in one of the Mesolithic cultures characterized by stone microliths (tiny stone blades edges and points) used as arrowheads or set into the cutting edges of mattocks axes and adzes and many bone and wood tools are known. It belongs to the early post-glacial period or Boreal time c 9000-5000 BC."
mummy: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: The dead body of a person or animal preserved according to the rites practiced in ancient Egypt. After removal of the organs to separate canopic jars, the body was treated with resin (natron) to dry it out thoroughly. It was then wrapped tightly in linen bandages, accompanied by jewelry, religious texts, and unguents of various kinds. Human mummies were then generally enclosed in cartonage, wooden, stone, or gold cases of human form, before being placed in the tomb. All stages of the procedure were accompanied by elaborate rituals, culminating in the ceremony of the 'opening of the mouth', which symbolically restored to the completed mummy the faculties of life. The practice arose from the accidental preservation of bodies by desiccation in the desert sand, giving rise to the idea that such preservation was necessary to the survival of the dead man's soul. It continued until the end of pharaonic times. The name derives from 'moumiya', or bitumen, with which the Persians mistakenly thought the bodies were coated.
mummy label: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Greek tabla
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of identification tag used during the Greco-Roman period, when corpses were regularly being transported from the home to the cemetery or back to their village. The tags were made of wood and, occasionally, stone. Mummy labels were inscribed with short ink texts in Greek or demotic, giving name, age, hometown, and destination of the deceased.
nail: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A metal spike for fixing things to wood (including other pieces of wood). A small metal spike with a broadened flat head, driven into wood to join things together
Nana Mode: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age village site in the Central African Republic, dated to about the 7th century AD. Excavations have revealed pottery decorated by a carved wooden toothed wheel or disk. It has been suggested that this type of pottery may have been made by speakers of an Ubangian language.
naos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: temple sanctuary; naoi = plural
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A shrine, usually monolithic, in which the image of an Egyptian deity was kept, especially in temple sanctuaries. A small wooden naos was normally placed inside a monolithic one in hard stone; the latter are typical of the Late Period, and sometimes elaborately decorated. The largest naoi are those where a temple's main cult statue was kept, in the sanctuary. A naos generally took the form of a rectangular chest or box hewn from a single block of wood or stone, and could also be used as a container for a funerary statue or mummified animal. Egyptian 'naophorous statues/ portrayed the subject holding a shrine, sometimes containing a divine image. The term is also used for the interior apartment of a Greek temple (a Greek temple placed within a temenos) or the cella of the Roman temple. In Classical architecture, it is the body of a temple (as distinct from the portico) in which the image of the deity is housed. In early Greek and Roman architecture it was a simple room, usually rectangular, with the entrance at one end and with the side walls often being extended to form a porch. In larger temples, where the cella is open to the sky, a small temple was sometimes placed within. In the Byzantine architectural tradition the naos was preserved as the area of a centrally planned church, including the core and the sanctuary, where the liturgy is performed.
New Guinea: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The largest island of Oceania, in the eastern Malay Archipelago, north of Australia. New Guinea was joined to Australia in low sea-level periods of Pleistocene and was probably first settled by early Australoids at the same time as its larger neighbor. New Guinea archaeology examines the Highlands, which is totally Papuan-speaking, and also the coasts, which is mixed Papuan and Austronesian. The Highland prehistoric sequence in totally aceramic. Stone mortars and pestles, many elaborate shape, are also found in the Highlands. The New Guinea coasts only have sequences back to 3000-2000 years ago as earlier sites were probably drowned by rising sea levels. The best-reported are Collingwood Bay and south coastal Papua, both with pottery. Some coastal groups had developed elaborate trading networks by the time of European contact. Almost the whole of New Guinea is occupied by speakers of Papuan languages, the original settlers of the island, who live mainly in the interior and southern sections. Ethnic composition is complex among the Papuans, who speak some 700 different languages.
New Kingdom: CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: A period of Egyptian history comprising the 18th-20th Dynasties, c 1550-1070 BC. It was the period following the expulsion of Asiatic Hyksos rulers and the subsequent reunification by Thutmose I-IV, Amenhotep, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and Ramesses I-XI. The Egyptian army pushed beyond the traditional frontiers of Egypt into Syria-Palestine. The Theban conquerors established the 18th Dynasty (1550-1295 BC), creating a great empire under a succession the rulers bearing the names Thutmose and Amenhotep. The newly reunified land had a stronger economy, supplemented by resources of empire in Nubia and western Asia. To this period belongs much of the monumental architecture of Egypt. From the beginning of the New Kingdom, temples of the gods became the principal monuments; royal palaces and private houses, which are very little known, were less important. Temples and tombs were stone with relief decoration on their walls and were filled with stone and wooden statuary, inscribed and decorated stelae (freestanding small stone monuments), and, in their inner areas, composite works of art in precious materials.
New Zealand: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The southernmost and (except for Chatham Islands) only temperate landmass to be settled by Polynesians/Maoris. Beginning in c 900 AD, the lifestyle was predominantly horticultural on the North Island, but hunting and gathering on the colder South Island. Language, economy, and technology are almost fully Polynesian. There are two archaeological phases: Archaic, c 900-1300, and Classic, c 1300-1800. The Classic is associated with many earthwork fortifications, a rich woodcarving tradition, and development of the chiefly society observed by Captain Cook in 1769.
Niah: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sarawak, Niah Caves
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A limestone massif with a number of caves which have produced material of all periods from Palaeolithic to c 1300 AD in Sarawak, north Borneo. It is one of the major prehistoric deposits of island Southeast Asia with human remains. The most important site, the Great Cave, has deposits which may be of Middle Palaeolithic age, but a later stratum (dated around 38,000 BC) yielded a Homo sapiens skull which is probably the oldest yet known in the region. Other deposits include a series of flexed, seated, and fragmentary burials dated to 12,000-1500 BC and extended burials in wooden coffins or mats of the last two millennia BC. There are also jar burials and cremations from c 1500 BC to 1000 AD. There was distinctive pottery c 2500 BC, Neolithic polished stone adzes, and metal by the 1st millennium AD.
Nishiyagi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site dating to the Palaeolithic in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, where wooden boards are preserved by waterlogging and dated to 50,000-70,000 bp.
Njoro River Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the earliest well-documented Pastoral Neolithic sites in southern Kenya, of the Elmenteitan industry and dated to c 12th century BC. It was a cemetery for cremated burials, each interment being accompanied by a stone bowl, mortar, and pestle, as well as by numerous hard stone beads and pendants. A finely decorated wooden vessel and a gourd were also preserved.
Noin Ula: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Noin-ula
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A range of hills in northern Mongolia near Lake Baikal where a rich burial site, possibly of the Xiongnu nobility of the 1st century AD, has been excavated. To the north of Ulaanbaatar on the Selenge River, Noin Ula had horse burials and the furnishings of one tomb were especially lavish. The prince for whom it was made must have been in contact with China, for his coffin was apparently made for him there, as were some of his possessions buried with him -- a lacquer cup inscribed with the name of its Chinese maker and dated September 5, 13 AD. His horse trappings are elaborately decorated and the saddle covered with leather threaded with black and red wool clipped to resemble velvet. The magnificent textiles in the tomb included a woven wool rug lined with thin leather with purple, brown, and white felt appliqué work. Other textiles are of Greco-Bactrian and Parthian origin. Some objects are similar to ones from Pazyryk in the Altai. The tombs, which were plundered in antiquity, take the form of wooden burial chambers in deep shafts over which earthen barrows were raised.
Northwest Coast tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A series of prehistoric groups of the northern California coast, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and southeastern Alaska, with origins in the Fraser River delta and clearly established by 1000 BC. Their subsistence was based on hunting and gathering of riverine and marine food sources (mollusks, salmon, halibut, sea mammals). Characteristics in the archaeological record include bone and slate hunting tools, stone effigy carving, and woodworking tools. Totem poles and elaborately carved long houses are still a cultural feature in the area.
Novgorod: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early city in northwest Russia, about 160 km south of St Petersburg and founded in the 9th century AD. Waterlogged conditions have preserved intact a complete sequence of medieval wooden buildings and streets dating from the foundation of the city up to the 18th century. Dendrochronology has made it possible to date accurately the layers of timber streets superimposed on top of each other as well as their relationships to the log cabins either side of them. There are small factories with tools for metal, wood, leather and glass working. Also found were medieval textiles and a collection of 700 birch-bark documents which have proved invaluable in understanding the history, trading relationships, and feudal estates of the town. The fortified Kremlin at Novgorod dates from the 11th century and is one of the earliest to have been given a stone enceinte. Novgorod controlled a vast territory in the 14th-15th centuries, extending to the Arctic Ocean and beyond the Ural Mountains.
Nydam: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A bog in Schleswig, southern Jutland, which yielded a rich votive deposit of the Roman Iron Age. The main finds were more than 100 iron swords (some with damascened blades, others stamped with the maker's name), and a wooden boat some 21 m long. The boat was clinker-built, had no mast or sail and was provided with 15 rowlocks on each side. The bow and sternpost were upturned, and the vessel was steered by an oar. It is now a famous exhibit, the Nydamboot (Nydam boat). This 4th-century Viking ship was discovered in 1863 in the Nydam marsh. It was one of the most important archaeological finds of the Migration Period. The boat is believed to have been typical of the vessels used by the Anglo-Saxon migrants coming to England in the 5th century. Its construction, however, would have made this a dangerous journey and it is likely that its use was confined to the tideless sea of the Baltic.
oar: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A wooden pole with a blade at one end that is used to propel a boat along through leverage against the water. Oars differ from paddles in being secured to the side of the boat itself and being used in pairs. In northern Europe they probably appear in the later Bronze Age to judge from representations on model boats and rock art.
oca: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: South American wood sorrel cultivated for its edible tubers.
offertory: CATEGORY: term; artifact
DEFINITION: In Egyptian archaeology, an offering made to the gods. As an artifact, it could take on various forms: outstretched hands supporting a cup; or spoons of ivory, wood, or bronze, the handle of which is formed by a human figure.
ogham: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ogam, ogam, Ogham, ogum; Pictish symbol stones
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A Celtic script used for writing in northwest Europe, probably created in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, and used for writing Irish and Pictish languages. The alphabet has 20 letters represented by tally marks on either side of or crossing a horizontal baseline. The script is better suited for carving on stone (or possibly wood) than for writing in ink. It is believed to have originated in Ireland or south Wales as a secret script and it spread throughout the Celtic areas for use on memorial stones. It is also found associated with the symbols and carvings of the Picts, who used it till the 9th century. Ogham is used on memorial pillar stones in the Celtic regions of Britain, usually consisting of no more than the name and descent of the dead man. It was often the custom, particularly in the south and west in Wales and Cornwall, to provide a translation in Latin minuscule and this has proved important for the translation and dating of ogham. Of the more than 375 ogham inscriptions known, about 300 are from Ireland.
Olynthus: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Ancient city of northern Greece, captured and destroyed by Philip of Macedon in 348 BC. Some late Neolithic settlement is followed after a gap by Iron Age occupation by Thracian tribes, perhaps from about 1000 BC. The 5th-4th centuries BC saw the classical Greek town caught up in alliances, misalliances, intrigues and wars. The town, from c 430 BC, had a road system and Hippodamian-planned house blocks. Many of the houses show an internal courtyard, sometimes colonnaded, and a south-facing dining room. In some cases, a second story is reached by a wooden staircase from the courtyard. The roof is typically pitched and tiled. There are important examples of pebble mosaic floors, some with mythological scenes, and of a bathroom with pottery tub. Inscriptional evidence from the houses gives information of their sale, rental, and mortgage. The houses have also produced several coin hoards. It also provides a terminus ante quem for the development of black-glossed pottery.
Onion Portage: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important site in northwest Alaska containing one of the continent's longest stratigraphies; occupied from at least 8500 BP by a number of Eskimo-Siberian-Indian subcultures (American Palaeoarctic, Northern Archaic, Arctic Small Tool Traditions, Inuit cultures). The oldest industries, called Akmak and Kobuk, are thought to last from c 9000 BC until the mid-7th millennium BC, and include chipped tools (blades, bifaces and associated cores) which are closer to Siberian types than to those of temperate America. The Kobuk (6200-6000 BC) contained similar tools but of limited variety. After a long hiatus in occupation, the Palisades II industry (4850-3350 BC, variously 4000-2000 BC) shows links with the archaic cultures of the forest zone to the southeast, as does the succeeding Portage complex (3350-3000 BC, variously 2600-2200 BC). Next came tools of the Denbigh Flint Complex (3200 BC, variously 2200-1800 BC), followed by Chloris (1500-500 BC) with the oldest pottery in the Arctic, then a local version (Norton) of Ipiutak (400-800 AD), by a forest-adapted Indian culture called Itkillik Complex (500-1000 AD), and finally by an Arctic Woodland Culture facies of the Thule Tradition. The excellent vertical stratigraphy of this site makes it the major reference for all western Arctic chronologies, especially when taken together with the horizontal stratigraphy of Cape Krusenstern.
organic artifact: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: organic material
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Artifact made of organic materials -- living organisms, including wood, bone, horn, fiber, ivory, or hide.
Orientalizing: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: orientalizing
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The period in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, during which Scythian-Iranian Oriental objects with their animalistic motifs were spread and consequently imitated throughout the Mediterranean countries, especially in Greece and Italy. It is also the style of Greek art in that period, a decorative scheme found especially on pottery. The style was probably the result of renewed contact with Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt. It is an art history term also used of various periods and cultures in antiquity when a 'western' production shows evidence for influence from the Near, Middle, or Far East. An example would be this borrowing by Greek Black-Figure painters of numerous abstract, vegetable and animal motifs from Syrian and Phoenician art. From about 650 BC on, the Greeks began to visit Egypt regularly, and their observation of the monumental stone buildings there was the genesis of the ultimate development of monumental architecture and sculpture in Greece. The Egyptians executed in hard stone instead of the limestone, clay, or wood to which the Greeks had been accustomed. The Greeks learned the techniques of handling the harder stone in Egypt, and at home they turned to the fine white marble of the Cyclades islands (Paros, Naxos) for their materials. It was at this time that the first truly monumental examples of Greek sculpture appeared. The period in Greece continued through the 7th century BC and saw the rise of narrative in Greek art.
Oseberg ship: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Important Viking ship burial, discovered in 1903 in south Norway in a peat mound. It was found with most of its timbers intact and its main burial chamber still filled with most of its contents. Among the objects in the chamber were the skeletons of a man (c 850-900 AD), dogs and horses, a chest containing oil lamps and personal items, a wooden bed and a sledge. Now reconstructed in the Oslo Ship Museum, the Oseberg ship is a fine example of a large sophisticated Viking warship. The ship itself was plank-built and had a pronounced keel, a large mast and a beautifully carved stern. It shed much light on everyday life of Vikings.
osteodontokeratic: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Literally bone-tooth-horn" referring to the controversial tool "technology" of some early hominids. When there is no sign that a people used wood or stone for tools and when it is supposed that that people did make tools of bones teeth and horns their culture is said to be osteodontokeratic. The term is based on an assemblage of fossilized animal bones found at Taung by Raymond Arthur Dart in South Africa where the first specimen of Australopithecus africanus was found and at Makapansgat where other specimens of A. africanus were found. Dart proposed that these fossils were tools used by A.africanus an early hominid species. He postulated that teeth were used as saws and scrapers long bones as clubs and so on. He explained his theory on the basis of the fact that certain bones turned up regularly while others were rarely found. Later research however cast doubt on the general interpretation of altered bone-remains as tools. More likely the accumulation studied by Dart resulted from the natural breakdown of skeletons predators and damage to the bones by falling stones."
Ostrów Lednicki: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island in Lake Lednika, Poland, with an important medieval site. The earliest 9th-century settlement was fortified with a rampart in the early 10th century. At the end of the 10th century, a grandiose citadel, one of the official residences of the Polish rulers, was built. The official secular and religious buildings inside the stronghold consisted of a stone-built palace with an inner courtyard. The wooden dwellings and workshops were concentrated outside.
Ovcarovo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell settlement and two cemeteries in northeast Bulgaria, with an Early Neolithic occupation with pits and post holes stratified beneath 13 Copper Age habitation levels, dated to much of the 4th millennium BC. There is an initial rectangular wooden palisade enclosure; some of the houses were two-storied. Many ritual objects were incised with simple signs. Both cemeteries date to the Copper Age.
Owo: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Ancient Yoruba kingdom and city in southwest Nigeria with terra-cotta sculptures dated to the early 15th century AD. The city of Owo, near the frontier with the Edo-speaking peoples, developed an art style and a whole culture that is a blend of Yoruba and Benin traditions. Ivory carving is especially important, and wooden heads of rams and of humans with rams' horns are used on ancestral altars.
ox-scapula shovel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The shoulder-blade of an ox or large cow which has been used to shovel up broken rock and soil. Discarded and broken examples of such shovels are well represented at Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites in the British Isles, usually in association with ANTLER PICKS and antler rakes which, together perhaps with baskets, leather ropes, and wooden levers, comprising the main tool kit of those responsible for earthmoving.
Ozette: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A coastal settlement in Washington state occupied for c 1000 years by ancestors of the present-day Makah Indians; a prehistoric culture of the Northwest Coast tradition. Ozette suffered disaster two centuries ago when longhouses and individual dwellings were buried by mudslides and preserved in perfect condition for archaeologists to investigate in the 1970s. The over 60,000 artifacts recovered, including whale-hunting paraphernalia, weaving equipment, and wooden boxes and bowls, constitute the assemblage.
Pacific Littoral tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A tradition developed c 4000-1800 BC on Peruvian coast. Settled communities lived off maritime resources and cultivated cotton and gourds for materials for fishing industry. Bone, wood, shell, stone were worked. There were textiles, an early art style, and temple platforms in ceremonial centers.
pack-rat midden: CATEGORY: feature; artifact
DEFINITION: Any collection of artifacts or objects concealed at some point by a pack rat (also wood or trade rat) and remaining in an assemblage at that location. They are so-called because they collect various bits of material to deposit in their dens. They sometimes pick up shiny objects in camps and may at the same time leave something they were carrying, thus giving the impression that they are trading" one item for the other."
paddle-and-anvil: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: paddle-and-anvil technique, paddle and anvil
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A pottery-making method in which a wooden paddle and a stone or ceramic disk are used to smooth and shape a coiled pot. The paddle was used to strike the exterior surface of the vessel as a convex stone or clay anvil was held against the corresponding interior surface.
palette: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small slab of stone for grinding and mixing substances like paint or cosmetics. A series from early Egypt, as that of Narmer, is important since the relief decoration provides valuable evidence on the art and history of the country at the beginning of Dynastic times, c 3000 BC. The term is also used to describe scribal palettes. Cosmetic/ceremonial palettes were usually of siltstone (greywacke) and are found in grave goods as early as Badarian period (c 5500-4000 BC). Scribal palettes, long rectangular pieces of wood or stone (averaging 30 cm long, 6 cm wide), had a shallow central groove or slot to hold reed brushes or pens and circular depressions for cakes of pigment. The order of colors was white, then yellows, reds, blues, to black.
palmate stone: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: palma
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A large spatulate stone object about 2 ft (61 cm) long, shaped like a hand with extended fingers, believed to be a ceremonial representation of a device worn by ballgame players in Mesoamerica and dating to the Classic Period. It rested on a yoke which fitted around the waist and projected upward to protect the chest. Probably of wood or leather with carving on both sides, they may have been trophies, religious symbols, or for burial purposes. The center for these puzzling stone carvings seems to be the coastal Veracruz area.
Panlongcheng: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: P'an-lung-ch'eng
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Chinese archaeological site from about the middle of the Shang dynasty period (18th-12th century BC). The site, located near the confluence of the Yangtze and Han-shui rivers in central Hupei, consists of five graves and two storage pits. It is thought to be the southernmost outpost of the political system in the 15th-13th centuries BC. Palatial foundations, elite burials with Erligang-style bronze ritual vessels, and a hang-tu city wall have been excavated. There are poor burials, pottery, stone tools, and other bronze items. The earliest wood carvings yet found in China were at Panlongcheng.
paring chisel: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of tool made of stone or, more usually, metal with a shaped narrow blade that can be used carefully to remove thin strips or shavings of wood when fashioning a joint or shaping a block.
patu: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A Polynesian/Maori short clublike weapon, made of a variety of materials including wood, bone, stone, and whalebone (paroa). Finds on the Society Islands that are similar to the Maori patu suggest they may have been part of the Early Eastern Polynesian assemblage of New Zealand's first settlers.
Pazyryk: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pazirik
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A group of some 40 barrows in the Altai Mountains of central Asia in Kazakhstan, dating to the 5th-3rd centuries BC. They consist of pits some 6 meters square covered with low cairns. The construction and altitude have combined to keep their contents frozen, and are thus remarkably well preserved. There is a rich collection of clothing and felt hangings decorated with animal art, dismantled four-wheeled wagons, and artifacts of wood, leather, skin, and wool. There are mummified remains of several tombs; the men were covered with tattoos. Many horses, with bridles, saddles, and saddlecloths had been buried in neighboring chambers. The burials clearly belonged to the rulers of a nomadic people of the eastern steppes related to the Scythians. The site is perhaps the richest source of information about the customs and artifacts of the Scythians before their westward migrations into western Asia and Europe.
pearlware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A form of earthenware, developed by Wedgwood (1775-79) as a whiter version of its creamware body. A greater quantity of white clay was used in the body and the transparent lead glaze included traces of cobalt, giving the surface a pearly white appearance. It was soon adopted by other potteries, such as Spode, Leeds, and Swansea.
pegged spearhead: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A variety of socketed spearhead common in the European late Bronze Age in which the shaft is secured to the metal head by means of a metal or wooden peg set at right angles to the main axis of the shaft passing through a pair of opposed holes in the metal casing of the socket.
Peterborough Ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A poorly made, elaborately decorated pottery of the British Late Neolithic, found in southern England. The ornament consists of pits, bone, and wooden stick impressions and 'maggot' patterns made by impressing a bit of whipped cord into the soft clay. The earliest (Ebbsfleet) substyle developed from Grimston-Lyles Hill ware c 3500 BC and consisted of round-based vessels with fairly restrained ornament. The later variants have more complicated decoration and show the influence of Beaker pottery: the second (Mortlake) substyle still occurs on round-based vessels, but in the final (Fengate) substyle the pots are flat-bottomed and have many features which lead on to the collared urns of the Bronze Age. These vessels were probably intended for everyday domestic use.
pila muralia: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Latin term for a double-pointed wooden stake carried by Roman soldiers for use in fortifying the ramparts of temporary camps.
pile dwelling: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: lake dwelling
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: Platforms raised on posts above open water or on damp ground at water's edge; a type of Neolithic settlement found common in prehistoric Europe in areas with many lakes, such as Switzerland, Germany, and north Italy. Such a settlement was formerly on the edge of a lake but is now buried by lakeshore sediment or underwater. They should properly be labeled lakeside villages, since in most cases they were constructed on the shore and not on stilts over the water, as was formerly believed. They were, however, frequently constructed on timber platforms and subsequently rising water levels in the lakes have preserved these platforms and much other wooden material, as well as artifacts of other organic substances. Cultures in which lake villages were common include Chassey, Cortaillod, Horgen, and Polada.
pin beater: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A thin rod of wood or bone (occasionally stone) with tapering ends used to compact the weft threads on an upright loom by pushing down between each of the warp threads one at a time. See also WEAVING COMB.
pipkin: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Style of medieval ceramic vessel in the form of a saucepan with a single hollow handle probably made to take a wooden extension.
Pirri point: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pirri culture, pirri point
CATEGORY: lithics; culture
DEFINITION: An Australian stone tool type, a symmetrical leaf-shaped point, up to 7 cm long, unifacially flaked all over its dorsal surface. The striking platform and bulb of percussion are sometimes removed to produce a rounded, thinned butt. Pirri points have been found distributed widely in inland Australia from South Australia to the Northern Territory and northwestern Australia. A component of the Australian Small Tool Tradition, the Pirri point dates from about 3000 BC. The aboriginal term pirri" means 'wood-engraving tool'."
pitchfork: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A two- or three-pronged implement equipped with a long handle, made of wood or having a wooden shaft and metal head, used for pitching hay or straw usually in the course of turning it, moving it, or building a storage rick.
Pitt-Rivers, General Augustus Lane-Fox (1827-1900): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: British scholar and pioneer in archaeological excavation and recording, working on prehistoric and Romano-British sites in England. His large-scale excavations unearthed villages, camps, cemeteries, and barrows at sites such as Woodcutts, Rotherley, South Lodge, Bokerly Dyke, and Wansdyke. From his study of firearms, he realized that something analogous to evolution can be traced in artifacts as well as in living organisms, with the same gradual developments and occasional degenerations. He assembled an ethnographical collection arranged by use rather than by provenance, a practical example of typology. He helped to advance excavation to a scientific technique with precise work, total excavation of sites, meticulous recording of detail, and full and rapid publication. His work on his own estate, Cranborne Chase, was published in five volumes entitled Excavations in Cranborne Chase" (1887-1903). He stressed stratigraphy and precise recording of all finds and is often called the "father of British archaeology". "
place-name: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A place-name is a word or words used to indicate, denote, or identify a geographic locality such as a town, river, or mountain. Toponymy divides place-names into two broad categories: habitation names and feature names. A habitation name denotes a locality that is peopled or inhabited, such as a homestead, village, or town. Feature names refer to natural or physical features of the landscape. The study of a place-names plays a vital role in medieval studies. The form of the name will often indicate a Celtic, Latin, or Germanic origin, and its prefix or suffix may suggest the type of settlement, for instance, hamlet, village, riverside place, woodland settlement, etc. Two basic assumptions are: every place-name has a meaning, including place-names derived from personal names; place-names describe the site and record some evidence of human occupation or ownership. Toponymy can uncover important historical information about a place, such as the period of time the original language of the inhabitants lasted, settlement history, and population dispersal.
Plains Village tradition: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Plains Village Indian
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Name given to group of cultures of the central and eastern plains of North America between 900-1850 AD, particularly in Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Contemporaneous with Mississippian tradition of Eastern Woodlands, it represents a fusion of that tradition with the Plains variant of the Woodland tradition. The Plains Village tradition was characterized by large habitation structures in settlements that were often fortified. Subsistence dependent on hunting, farming along rivers, beans/squash/maize, and the pottery was related to Mississippian and had incised decoration and rim adornment. When drought forced abandonment of the central plains, the inhabitants moved to the Middle Missouri area (North, South Dakota) and formed the Coalescent Tradition.
plank coffin: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Wooden box made from planks fixed together (rather than a hollowed trunk, for example) for the containment of a human corpse prior to and during burial. For Roman and later times plank coffins are usually recognized archaeologically from the pattern of nails found in the grave. Plank coffins made before the availability of nails can sometimes be recognized by the patterns of grave fill.
plantago: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: A weed of cultivation, which appears strongly in the pollen record as a result of the clearing of previously wooded land. There are several varieties and their presence is taken by archaeologists to imply cereal cultivation. The greater plantain (Plantago major) provides seed spikes for bird food. Ribwort and hoary plantain (P. lanceolata and P. media, respectively) are troublesome weeds. Psyllium and P. ovata have been useful in medical science.
plow beam: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plough beam
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The wooden or metal bar that connects the blades, shares, and their mountings to the yoke, which in turn is attached to the harnesses fitted to the draught animals that provide the power. The plough beam has to be strong enough to transmit the power from the traction through to the blades and share cutting through the ground, but long enough for the draught animals not to be snagged by the plowing mechanism itself.
podsol: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: podzol, podsol soil, podzol soil
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A soil type characteristic of coniferous woodland, heath, tundra or moorland -- leached, acid soils formed under conditions of very cold climate's forest vegetation cover. The fauna produce phenols which are washed into the horizons and disperse the clay/humus complexes. Minerals, humus, and nutrients are washed down the profile and become deposited as illuvial horizons of humus and iron oxides. The latter is often called the 'iron pan'. A bleached, sandy eluvial horizon is left at the top of the profile. Podsols develop naturally in areas of high annual rainfall, but most of the large areas of podsols in the uplands and lowland heaths of the British Isles were probably at least initiated by man's clearance of woodland during the present Interglacial.
Polada: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age lake dwelling site near the southern end of Lake Garda in Lombardy, Italy, the type site of the Polada culture, c 2200-1600 BC. The culture was characterized by a coarse undecorated ware forming deep carinated cups and various simple jars. The strap handles were often surmounted by knobs. Tlat and slightly flanged axes were made of bronze. Antler was much used, and objects and vessels of wood survive on waterlogged sites. A variety of settlement types occur, including hill sites and lake villages like Polada itself. The Polada people were accomplished metalworkers, producing a range of tools and weapons showing strong connections with Unetice and other Early Bronze Age groups north of the Alps. The Polada culture has features derived from Beaker assemblages, such as wristguards and v-perforated buttons, also.
post mold: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: posthole, post hole
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: The circular remains of a wooden post that was part of a prehistoric structure, often just a dark stain in soil.
posthole: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: post mold, post hole, post-pipe, post-pit
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A hole dug or bored into the ground for holding an upright post. Once the post is installed, the remaining area of posthole is backfilled with earth and sometimes stronger packing material like stone. To archaeologists, postholes are the outline of a deteriorated post, indicating the former location of some structure. Even when the wood has decayed and the hole silted up, or the post has been extracted, the existence of a posthole can be recognized by differences between the color and texture of its fill and those of the earth into which it was dug. A pattern of postholes may provide the only evidence for the size and shape of houses and other wooden structures. They can reveal that a settlement was surrounded by a palisade and presumably had enemies.
potash-lime glass: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Glass made using potash derived from burning wood.
potter's comb: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: An implement with serrated edge capable of producing an impressed decoration on pottery. A marbled effect was sometimes achieved (as in Chinese pottery of the T'ang dynasty by mingling, with a comb, slips of contrasting colors after they had been applied to the vessel. Potter's combs were made of stone, bone, shell, or wood.
Poverty Point: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in northern Louisiana with a spectacular group of late Archaic sites, c 1300-400 BC in the Woodland stage. The site consisted of six concentric octagons, each formed of earthen ridges that seem to have been used as dwelling areas. There are also two mounds, and from the larger one the vernal and autumnal equinoxes can be observed directly over the center of the village. Artifacts include numerous clay balls used for cooking in lieu of heated stones, microliths, stone smoking pipes and vessels, clay figurines, and fiber-tempered pottery sherds. The clay balls are found in thousands, both here and at other sites in the Lower Mississippi valley. A high level of social organization is indicated by the presence of earthworks like that at Poverty Point, but there is very little evidence of the practice of agriculture.
Prairie phase: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Early Woodland-Middle Woodland group in southwestern Wisconsin, dated to c 100 AD. Prairie Ware, sandy-paste vessels with incised, corded, and fingernail-punctated decoration, was associated with it.
projectile point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The general term for the stone, bone, or wooden tip of a projectile -- the point that is attached to a weapon such as an arrow, dart, lance, or spear. Among such points are arrowheads, which are usually of small size, and dart and spearpoints, which may be quite large. This tool is valuable in reconstruction of culture history.
promontory peg: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A type of carved wooden artifact, probably used as the trigger for a snare, and first recognized at the Promontory Caves, northwest of Salt Lake City, Utah.
psalia: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Ancient accessories of horse bits or cheek pieces, comprising a pair of vertical rods which were attached perpendicularly to the ends of bits and served for attaching the reins and as a stop piece. Psalia of bone, wood, bronze, and iron were used everywhere there was horse riding. Their shapes are varied and useful for chronological and cultural attributions.
punch: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A pointed tool, usually of bone, stone, or wood, used to perforate a material such as hide or shell.
Puntutjarpa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter in the Warburton Ranges of the Western Desert, Western Australia with occupation from c 8000 BC. It is part of the 'Australian desert culture' with stone tools in the earliest levels consisting of small stone scrapers (micro-adze flakes or thumbnail scrapers), large flake scrapers, and horsehoof cores. Larger adze flakes and seed grinders appeared around 5000 BC. Microliths (Bondi points and crescents) were present from 2000 BC. The earlier tool types persisted until the present, with late addition of flake knives and hand axes. The preponderance of adze flakes showed the significance of woodworking in the desert culture.
radiocarbon dating: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: radioactive carbon dating, radiocarbon age determination, carbon-14 dating; radiochronometry; RC
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: An absolute radiometric dating technique for determining the age of carbon-bearing minerals, including wood and plant remains, charcoal, bone, peat, and calcium carbonate shell back to about 50,000 bp. The technique is based on measuring the loss of radiocarbon (carbon-14) that begins disintegration at death at a known rate. It is one of the best-known chronometric dating techniques and the most important in archaeology presently. It can be used for the dating organic material up to 75,000 years old. It is based on the theory of Willard F. Libby (1947); his radioactive-carbon dating provided an extremely valuable tool for archaeologists, anthropologists, and earth scientists. When organic matter dies it ceases to exchange its carbon, as carbon dioxide, with the atmosphere, so its C14 dwindles by decay and is not replenished. Determination of the radioactivity of carbon from a sample will reveal the proportion of C14 to C12, and this will in turn, through the known rate of decay of C14, give the age of, or more accurately the time elapsed since the death of, the sample. Two things in the method have to be allowed for: first, the 'date' given is never exact. The +/- figure, which should always be quoted, is a statistical one, meaning that there is a 2 to 1 chance that the correct date lies within that bracket. Secondly, the rate of decay of C14 is based in all published examples on a half-life of 5730 +/- 40 years (after 5730 years, one half of the C14 will have disintegrated, after another 5730 years one half of the remainder, and so on). Correction tables are used to correct 'raw' radiocarbon dates (quoted as years ad or BC) into true dates (AD or BC). The method yields reliable dates back to about 50,000 bp and under some conditions to about 75,000 bp. One of the basic assumptions of the technique is that the amount of radiocarbon in the atmosphere has remained constant through time. It has now been established, with the dendrochronological sequence for the bristlecone pine, that the C14 concentration has fluctuated. The reasons for the fluctuation are not yet fully understood. The calibration of radiocarbon dates is therefore necessary in order to achieve an approximate date in calendar years. Dates quoted in radiocarbon years, before calibration, are written BC or bp (before present), as opposed to calibrated dates, written BC or BP. The original half-life for radiocarbon of 5,568 ? 30 years has been revised to 5,730 ? 40 years, though dates are normally published according to the old half-life in order to avoid confusion (the date can be adjusted for the new half-life by multiplying the old date by 1.029). All radiocarbon dates are quoted with a standard deviation. Ideally, a series of dates should be obtained for any deposit as a series may cluster around a central point. New refinements continue to improve the technique's accuracy as well as extend the range of dates which can be achieved. A previous limit of 50,000 years on the age of material which could be dated, set by the limits on the ability of the proportional counter used to record beta particle emissions, has been extended to 70,000 years by the use of isotopic enrichment, the artificial enrichment of the C14 to C12 ratio.
rampart: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: An earthwork built to defend a site, such as a fort. It was the mound of earth on the inner side of the ditch or an elongated bank, often forming an enclosure. Often a palisade of stakes were on top. A rampart made it difficult to attack a castle or fort. Combinations of ramparts and ditches made up the defenses of hillforts in prehistoric Europe. Roman legion camps always built a rampart of ditches, earth walls, and wooden palisades, within which the space was divided into headquarters, supply, and troop areas. Indications of the construction of the rampart may occur as tip-lines or turf-lines, which may represent pauses in the work or different phases of building. Buried soils are frequently found underneath mounds and ramparts, a source of information for environmental archaeology.
Rancho La Brea: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: La Brea Tar Pits
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Quaternary site (Le Brea Tar Pits) near Los Angeles with very large numbers of vertebrate remains dating c 40,000-11,000BP buried in tar pits (asphalt deposits of ancient tar seeps). The tar pits contain the fossilized skulls and bones of prehistoric animals that became entrapped in the sticky seepage of the pits. The remains of such Pleistocene mammals as imperial mammoth, mastodon, saber-toothed cat, giant ground sloth, and camel have been recovered. There are some artifacts, including manos and wooden spear points.
recurrence surface: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: recurrence horizon
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A division in peat stratigraphy which separates well-humidified peat from unhumidified peat. Recurrence surfaces are found in raised bogs and blanket bogs which are nourished only by rainfall. It has therefore been suggested that recurrence surfaces are due to a change to damper climate. Recurrence surfaces of many dates have been found, often several in one bog, although not so many fitting into one age range. During the late prehistoric and early historic phases of the past 6,000 years, the peat bogs of northern Europe appear to have undergone a number of desiccations (warm, dry summers), revealed in the bog cores as dry, often wooded, surfaces. The dry phases were generally followed by wet conditions in which peat accumulation was rapid. These overlying layers of renewed peat growth are also known as recurrence horizons"."
reflex bow: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small but powerful bow made such that, until strung, the ends of the bow project forwards rather than backwards. The simple bow, made from a single piece of wood, was known to Neolithic hunters; it is depicted in cave paintings by 30,000 BC. The first improvement was the reflex bow, a bow that was curved forward, or reflexively, near its center so that the string lay close against the grip before the bow was drawn. This increased the effective length of the draw since it began farther forward, close to the archer's left hand.
reindeer: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: caribou
CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: Arctic deer domesticated in some polar regions, which ranged from Spitsbergen and Scandinavia to eastern Siberia. They are also native to North America and are divisible into two types: the northern, or barren ground, caribou of the tundra and taiga, and the woodland caribou of Canadian forests. Both types of reindeer are game animals valued for meat, hide, and antlers. A number of hunting peoples living in Europe during the later part of the ice ages seem to have specialized in hunting reindeer, for its bones are much more common than those of other animals on these sites. This is true of a few Mousterian levels, but it is almost the rule for Late Palaeolithic sites of the Magdalenian and Solutrean. Reindeer are likely to have lived in large herds, but we do not know whether they migrated widely in western Europe as they do today in the Arctic.
retouch: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: secondary working; secondary flaking
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The working of a primary flake, usually by the removal of small fragments, to form a tool; to thin, sharpen, straighten, or otherwise refine an existing stone tool for further use. It is the work done to a flint implement after its preliminary roughing-out in order to make it into a functional tool. In the case of a core-tool, such as a hand-ax, retouch may consist of roughly trimming the edge by striking with a hammerstone, but on smaller, finer flake or blade tools it is usually carried out by pressure-flaking. It is done two ways, either by blows that knock small flakes off an edge (percussion retouch) or by pressure to force the flakes off (pressure retouch). The different types of retouch are also described as: backing or blunting retouch, and invasive or normal retouch. Invasive retouch can be steep or shallow, depending mainly on the kind of edge being retouched; this retouch can also be scaly in character. Backing is most often applied to blades and may have been done to blunt the back or to bring its end to a stout point. Evidence suggests that it may have been done to regularize the blade edge to facilitate fixing by resin 'mastic' to a bone or wood shaft. Such a strip of mastic was found in Lascaux, France. Notching or toothing is another form of retouch, and the removal of spalls or slivers as in the burin technique could be regarded as a further form of retouch or modification. Retouch is one of the most obvious features distinguishing a manmade from a naturally struck flint.
revetment: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A retaining wall that supports an earthwork structure, fortifications, or to hold the sides of a bank in place. It often has a facing such as concrete, stone, or wood.
Rongorongo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: rongorongo
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: The ancient script of Easter Island, carved in boustrophedon fashion on wooden boards. The script has about 120 pictographic symbols and has not been deciphered or traced to any specific outside source. It survives on 29 pieces of wood. It may be indigenous to the island and could even be of post-European inspiration (it was not recorded until the mid-19th century AD). It does not appear to be a true phonetic writing system.
roof furniture: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Wooden, stone, or ceramic items used as decorative and functional features of a roof. They include finials on the gables, antefixes to act as stoppers for hollow tiles emerging at the eaves, chimney pots, louvers, and smoke turrets to ventilate fires inside the building and let fumes escape, and ridge tiles along the highest point.
rosso antico: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: A salt-glazed red stoneware (red porcelain) produced by Josiah Wedgwood in the 18th century.
round tower: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A form of architecture in which a hollow circular column of 50-150 feet high is capped by a short pointed roof of stone. There are many in Ireland (upwards of 100), also in Scotland, the Isle of Man, in Denmark, and as part of Windsor Castle in England. Round towers were a feature of Irish monasteries from the Viking period and into the Romanesque. There is usually a single entrance door, about 8-15 feet above the ground, usually five stories high, and each floor was lit by a separate window and had a wooden floor. Because the doors were placed high off the ground, it seems that the main function of the towers was as a refuge from Viking and Irish raiders, but they may also have been used as companiles.
rune: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: futhark; runic
CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An angular script for carving on wood or stone developed by Germanic peoples (northern Germany, Scandinavia) around the 4th century AD through contact with Mediterranean alphabets. The early alphabet, with 24 letters divided into three groups of eight, was mainly used for short commemorative or magic protective formulae. A simplified alphabet of 16 characters was developed in Scandinavia from the 9th century, and this was used for more elaborate inscriptions, continuing for a long period in the Middle Ages. The etymology of the word means 'secret', 'mystery', 'counsel', and 'charm'. It is first recorded in Denmark and Schleswig and spread widely across northern Europe. The voyages of the Vikings later carried it as far as Russian and Iceland, where it remained in use into the Middle Ages. There are no substantiated runic inscription from the New World. A rune stone is a freestanding memorial stone with an inscription in runes. Runes are also associated with ceremonial artifacts, but also seen as graffiti.
sarcophagus: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A coffin or sepulchral chest of stone, wood, lead, or terra-cotta, typically carved or inscribed and intended to be exposed to view. In Egypt it was the outermost container, with one or more wooden coffins and a mummy case within. Greek for flesh-eater" or "flesh-swallowing" it is also the term for a kind of limestone reputed to consume the flesh of dead bodies. In the Classical world the term was used for a clay or marble container holding a corpse. Many were elaborately painted and in the Roman period elaborately carved."
Sarnate: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site of the Late Mesolithic Narva culture, located in the southeast Baltic province of Latvia. The single culture level has radiocarbon dates of 2950-2250 BC and contains a rich collection of Narva pointed-base pottery and bone implements. A variety of wooden artifacts have been found on the waterlogged site.
Sauveterrian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sauveterre-la-Lemance
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Early Mesolithic culture of France and neighboring parts of Europe, following the Azilian in c 9000 bp. It later spread to Britain and was contemporary with the Later Maglemosian. It is characterized by the lack of woodworking tools and by an abundance of geometric microliths. It is named after rock shelters in Sauveterre-la-Lémance, France. Sauveterrian related to 8000-4500 BC in southern half of France and it preceded the Tardenoisian.
scabbard: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Leather, wooden, metal, or woven case in which a sword or rapier is kept when not in use. Most scabbards are provided with fittings so that they can be hung from a belt or sash; those for use by mounted cavalry will have a chape on the distal end that allows the scabbard to be held in place by the rider's foot while the sword is drawn.
scorper: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small steel metalworking tool with a broad sharp edge used for removing the background from designs on metalwork to allow the pattern to stand out. The tool may also be moved forward or backward through the metal on alternate corners -- thus producing a zigzag or tremolo line. It is likely that scorpers had to be of iron or steel to work on bronze, and therefore they may belong to later stages in the development of metalworking than tracers. In ancient minting, engraving of the details was carried out by the use of scorpers. In wood engraving, scorpers were used for cutting away large spaces after outlining and engraving, so as to leave only the drawing in relief.
scraper: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: side scraper, end scraper, sidescraper, endscraper
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A retouched flake tool with a thick working edge; a flake tool that has been sharpened on one edge and left blunt on other edges to allow grasping, probably used to scrape (dress) animal hides. It is called a side scraper (racloir) or end scraper (grattoir) depending on the sharpened edge; side scrapers utilize the long side and end scrapers have the scraping facet on one end. Thumbnail" scrapers are very small; some cultures used scrapers as big as a fist. Scrapers were also used in woodworking and in shaping bone or ivory. Other types were snub-nosed round / horseshoe. Side scrapers are typical of the Middle Palaeolithic while end scrapers are typical of the later Palaeolithic."
sculpture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: plastic art
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An art form including all carved work in wood, ivory, stone, marble, metal, or other material and those works formed in a softer material not requiring carving, such as wax or clay. It includes statuary, carved ornament, glyptics, incised gems, and cameos. The most ancient specimens are carved of the hardest stones (basalt, granite, porphyry) and done before the introduction of steel tools.
seal: CATEGORY: artifact; language
DEFINITION: A device for impressing characteristic marks into a soft surface, such as wet clay or wax, to indicate ownership or authenticity. Seals were made of bone, ivory, stone, or wood and had an intaglio design and were in the form of stamps or cylinder seals. The first can have a very wide range of shapes, and gives single impressions. The second, characteristic of ancient Mesopotamia, is rolled across the surface to yield a frieze of repeat designs. Their social and linguistic significance is great. They were fundamental in the development of writing system and were a status symbol of authority and sometimes accorded talismanic properties. The use of seals and writing on clay tablets appeared together in Mesopotamia, towards end of 4th millennium BC.
seasoned: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Pertaining to maturing or aging by exposure to certain conditions or treatment as with wood or bone.
seed beater: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An instrument usually made of wood or reeds that is formed into a racketlike shape and used to strike seeds from bushes.
self pipe: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A stone or clay smoking pipe in which a stem is inserted into the mouth of the smoker. It differed from stone or clay pipe bowls into which a reed or wooden stem was inserted.
shabti: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Egyptian ushabti, shawabti
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Funerary figurine of Egyptian tombs from the Middle Kingdom, usually mummiform in appearance and carrying agricultural tools. It was developed out of the funerary statuettes and models provided in tombs of Old Kingdom. The shabti was intended to serve as a replacement if the deceased was called upon to perform manual labor in the netherworld. The finest examples were from the New Kingdom, some of Saite date. Made of wood, stone, terra-cotta, or faience, such statuettes were placed in the tombs often in large numbers.
shaduf: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: shadoof, denkli, paecottah
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An irrigation tool invented in ancient times, consisting of a long wooden pole with a receptacle at one end and a counterbalancing weight at the other, for transferring water out of a river or canal. This hand-operated device is still used in India, Egypt, and some other countries to irrigate land. The pole is mounted like a seesaw, a skin or bucket hung on a rope from one end, and a counterweight hung on the other. The operator pulls down on a rope to fill the bucket and allows the counterweight to raise the bucket. To raise water to higher levels, a series of shadufs are sometimes mounted one above the other.
shake: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A long, narrow thin piece of wood that has been split from a larger piece of wood, often layered on top of secondary beams in roof construction.
shawabti: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: shabti, Egyptian ushabti
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Funerary figurine of Egyptian tombs from the Middle Kingdom, usually mummiform in appearance and carrying agricultural tools. It was developed out of the funerary statuettes and models provided in tombs of Old Kingdom. The shabti was intended to serve as a replacement if the deceased was called upon to perform manual labor in the netherworld. The finest examples were from the New Kingdom, some of Saite date. Made of wood, stone, terra-cotta, or faience, such statuettes were placed in the tombs often in large numbers.
shield: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A piece of armor carried in the hand or on the arm, usually the left, to ward off weapons. Examples from the Bronze and Iron Age come from bogs and rivers of northwest Europe. In the Bronze Age, shields were circular and made of wood covered with bronze. They had a raised, dome-shaped boss in the center into the back of which the hand fitted, holding the grip. In the Iron Age, shields were sometimes called bucklers, and had become long and rectangular. They were made of bronze and embossed. Some were enameled in La Tène style and lined with wood or leather. Leather shields, with few surviving, are functionally more efficient, and wooden ones are also known, notably in Mexico, where they were decorated with feather mosaic.
Shindo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small spur projecting into the valley of the Kyi Chu River near Lhasa, Tibet. Three phases have been distinguished. Horizon A had flexed burials in rock-cut pits, accompanied by crude, handmade pottery but no metalwork. Horizon B contained two flexed burials in rock-cut pits with much finer handmade pottery and a few iron artifacts. There was also one larger tomb closed with two carefully dressed stone slabs and containing two skulls, a pile of long bones and vertebrae, three pottery vessels, and a wooden bowl with metal lining. Horizon C consisted of two tumuli built of pebbles, with flexed burials, fine wheel-turned pottery with traces of red decoration, and a few iron artifacts. About 50 meters from this ridge is a boulder with pecked carvings of animals and letters.
shingle: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A rectangular tile of asphalt composite, wood, metal, or slate used on walls or roofs
Shriver: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Woodland culture site in Missouri with a Folsom occupation and an assemblage of chert flaked tools (which are dated to 10,700-13,000 BP).
Shub-Ad (fl 3rd millennium BC): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Puabi
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A queen or Ur c 2600 BC (Early Dynastic Period in Mesopotamia, c 2900-2334 BC), whose tomb was discovered in the Royal Cemetery. The tomb contained the bodies of more than 60 attendants. The queen herself lay on a wooden bier within a stone-built chamber beside that of Abargi, probably her husband. She was wearing a cloak of beads of gold, silver, and precious stones, an elaborate headdress of gold ribbons with gold and lapis lazuli pendants, and large lunate gold earrings. There were also bowls and other vessels of gold, silver, and copper, as well as pottery. In the shaft of the tomb were a wooden sledge with mosaic decoration and two oxen to draw it, an inlaid gaming board, and a magnificent harp inlaid with shell, red and blue stone.
sickle: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A knife for reaping corn, first used by Neolithic man, made of flint and shaped like a banana. These flint blades were mounted in a wooden or bone haft, as in the Natufian of Palestine. Later sickles were of bronze and some of terra-cotta were in Sumer. In the Bronze Age, a socketed sickle appeared. Since the introduction of iron, the balanced sickle has become the standard form -- a deeply curved blade bent back from the handle. Its modern form is a curved metal blade with a short handle fitted on a tang.
Sinan: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A district in South Cholla Province, South Korea, where a sunken Yuan merchant ship of the 14th century AD was discovered off the coast. The ship's cargo was Chinese porcelain: more than 17,000 pieces have been recovered, mainly celadon and qingbai wares. Dated coins, 18.5 tons, and many metal, stone, wooden, and lacquer objects have also been found.
sipapu: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: In a kiva (ceremonial room) of the U.S. Southwest, a hole in the center of the floor that symbolizes the emergence of the spirit into another world -- giving access to the lower world in Pueblo mythology. They are sometimes carved through a plank of wood. Sipapus have been identified by homology.
sistrum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: seistron
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Ancient Egyptian percussion instrument, a rattle consisting of a wood, metal, or clay frame set loosely with crossbars (often hung with jingles) that sound when the instrument is shaken. A handle is attached to the frame. It was sacred to Hathor and used in ceremonial worship of Isis and at funerals. Open-topped, U-shaped sistrums existed by 2500 BC in Sumer. They are still used in Coptic and Ethiopian churches, in western Africa, among two Native American tribes, and in Malaysia and