Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for Holocene:

Altithermal: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Climatic Optimum, Thermal Maximum, Long Drought; altithermal; Great Drought; Holocene climatic optimum.
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A warm, dry postglacial period in the western United States approximately 5600-2500 BC. Coined by Ernst Antev in 1948, the term describes a time during which temperatures were warmer than at present. Other terms, like Long drought, are used.
Holocene: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Recent, Postglacial
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The present geological epoch, which began some 10,000 (bp) years ago (8300 BC). It falls within the Quaternary period (one of the four main divisions of the earth's history) and followed the Pleistocene Ice Age. The Holocene is marked by rising temperatures throughout the world and the retreat of the ice sheets. During this epoch, agriculture became the common human subsistence practice. During the Holocene, Homo sapiens diversified his tool technology, organized his habitat more efficiently, and adapted his way of life. The Holocene stage/series includes all deposits younger than the top of either the Wisconsinian stage of the Pleistocene Series in North America and the Würm/Weichsel in Europe.
Recent: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Holocene
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The epoch of geologic time in the late Quaternary following the Pleistocene; referred to as Holocene in several European countries. It is the present geological epoch, which began some 10,000 (bp) years ago (8300 BC). The Recent epoch is marked by rising temperatures throughout the world and the retreat of the ice sheets. During this epoch, agriculture became the common human subsistence practice. During the Recent epoch, Homo sapiens diversified his tool technology, organized his habitat more efficiently, and adapted his way of life. The Recent stage/series includes all deposits younger than the top of either the Wisconsinian stage of the Pleistocene Series in North America and the Würm/Weichsel in Europe.
Akashi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site near Kobe City, Japan, where fossil Homo bones were found in 1931. The bones have been dated to the Holocene.
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.
Atlantic period: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Atlantic phase, Atlantic climatic period
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: In Europe, a climatic optimum following the Boreal, the warmest period of the Holocene. This period was represented as a maximum of temperature and evidence from beetles suggests it being warmer than average for the interglacial. It seems to have begun about 6000 BC, when the average temperature rose. Melting ice sheets ultimately submerged nearly half of western Europe, creating the bays and inlets along the Atlantic coast that provided a new, rich ecosystem for human subsistence. The Atlantic period was followed by the subboreal period. The Atlantic period, which succeeded the Boreal, was probably wetter and certainly somewhat warmer, and mixed forests of oak, elm, common lime (linden), and elder spread northward. Only in the late Atlantic period did the beech and hornbeam spread into western and central Europe from the southeast.
Australian Core Tool and Scraper Tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late Pleistocene and Holocene stone tool industry of mainland Australia and Tasmania with artifacts dating from 30,000 BC (at Lake Mungo). The industry was characterized by high-domed chunky cores (called 'horsehoof cores') and steep-edge flake scrapers. The industry has close parallels in the islands of Southeast Asia.
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.
Bacsonian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An early Holocene stone tool industry (c 8000-4000 BC) of Indochina (esp. northern Vietnam). It is often regarded as a variant of the Hoabinhian industry of Southeast Asia. The Bacsonian industry is characterized by edge-ground pebble tools, ground-stone axes and adzes, and some sites have cord- or basket-marked pottery.
Bandung microliths: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A mid-Holocene obsidian industry of west Java's Bandung Plateau. It was characterized by small backed flakes and other tools.
Beringian tradition: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: American Paleo-Arctic
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture in existence approximately 12,000 years ago between Siberia and temperate Alaska. The term was used by H. West to cover various Alaskan and Siberian archaeological formations which had developed from the Siberian Upper Paleolithic period, an area now largely submerged under the Bering Strait. Chronologically these formations lie between the middle of the Holocene period (c 35,000-9/10,000 BP), depending on the area. West's categorization includes the Bel'kachi, Diuktai, and Lake Ushki cultures in Siberia, the Denalian culture and American Paleo-Arctic formations in Alaska and the Yukon. Although Alaska is generally thought to be the gateway through which humans entered the New World, the earliest undisputed evidence for people there dates later than 12,000 years ago, well after the climax of the last major glacial advance but while glaciers still covered much of Arctic Canada. Artifacts of 11,500 to 9,000 years ago are known from a number of Alaskan sites, where hunters of caribou (and, in one case, of an extinct form of bison) manufactured blades.
betel nut: CATEGORY: flora
DEFINITION: The nut or fruit of the Areca Palm, which is chewed in tropical Asia, Melanesia, and New Guinea as a stimulant. It was misnamed by Europeans because it is chewed with the betal leaf; hence, betel palm is the Areca Palm from which the nut is obtained. Archaeological occurrences include Spirit Cave (c 10,000-7,000 BC), eastern Timor (early Holocene), and several sites in the Philippines, where teeth stained by the nut have been found from c 3000 BC.
Bismarck Archipelago: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of islands off Papua New Guinea with sites of the Lapita cultural complex and Pleistocene rock shelters. Occupation goes back more than 30,000 years and obsidian was brought there 20,000 years ago. There was new fauna brought by humans in the Late Pleistocene and mid-Holocene.
Boomplaas: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave in the Folded Mountain Belt of the Cape Province, South Africa, containing a long sequence of Upper Pleistocene and Holocene deposits. The earliest occupation was probably around 80,000 years ago. There was a long 'Middle Stone Age' sequence and then occupations attributed to the Robberg, Albany, and Wilton industries.
Boreal: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boreal Climatic Interval
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A climatic subdivision of the Holocene epoch, following the Pre-Boreal and preceding the Atlantic climatic intervals. Radiocarbon dating shows the period beginning about 9,500 years ago and ending about 7,500 years ago. The Boreal was supposed to be warm and dry. In Europe, the Early Boreal was characterized by hazel-pine forest assemblages and lowering sea levels. In the Late Boreal, hazel-oak forest assemblages were dominant, but the seas were rising. In some areas, notably the North York moors, southern Pennines and lowland heaths, Mesolithic man appears to have been responsible for temporary clearances by fire and initiated the growth of moor and heath vegetation.
Cabalwanian industry: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A stone industry of flakes in Luzon, Philippines, thought to be early Holocene.
cannibalism: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The eating of human flesh by men. This is done either out of dire need or for ritual purposes, when parts of deceased relatives or enemies may be eaten so that their power can be magically acquired. Disarticulated bones of humans, as well as animals, have been found in the ditches of Neolithic camps, which is thought to be suggestive of cannibalism. Its existence in Paleolithic cultures is suggested by the lengthwise splitting of long bones so as to extract marrow from them. In Mesoamerica, there is evidence among hunter-gatherers at start of Holocene through the 1st millennium BC in farming villages. There were many written documents concerning cannibalism from the Aztecs of the 15th century AD. To the Aztecs, the human flesh sacrificed and offered to the gods became a sacred food.
Cave Bay Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter on Hunter Island off Tasmania, Australia, with three occupations around 23,000, 7000, and 2500 bp. The site shifted to a marine economy in the early Holocene, but was abandoned in mid-Holocene.
CLIMAP: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Climate: Long-range Interpretation, Mapping, and Prediction
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: One of two projects (including COHMAP) which are aimed at producing paleoclimatic maps showing sea-surface temperatures in different parts of the globe at various periods: CLIMAP stands for Climate: Long-range Interpretation, Mapping, and Prediction and COHMAP is the Cooperative Holocene Mapping Project. CLIMAP was an attempt to specify in detail the condition of the Earth's surface, most notably the oceans, at the climax of the Wisconsin glaciation 18,000 years ago. It also included a series of mathematical modeling exercises aimed at defining the atmospheric circulation present at that time. Evidence for the most recent 18,000 years of Earth history is more diverse than that available for earlier epochs. Paleolimnological and paleoecological data (lake sediments and peat deposits, interpreted chiefly for their pollen contents) has resulted in remarkable advances in climatic knowledge. COHMAP was a later exercise designed to unravel the history of deglaciation of North America and Eurasia, the recolonization of the northern land surfaces by plants and animals, and the equivalent changes in the tropics and the Southern Hemisphere.
Cloggs Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A limestone cave in northeastern Victoria, Australia, with human occupation deposits dating from c 16,000-7000 BC. Ochre and hearths as well as stone tools of the Australian Core Tool and Scraper Tradition have been found and the tools resemble similar Tasmanian artifacts. Bones of extinct animals found in deposits which are more than 20,000 years old and are separate from the human deposits. Australian Small Tool Tradition artifacts were excavated from late Holocene deposits in a rock shelter outside the main cave.
Coobool Creek: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of Australian Aboriginal skeletal remains in New South Wales, found in the Wakool River, from the mid- to late-Holocene.
Devensian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Weichselian, Devensian glaciation, Weichsel glaciation
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The final continental glacial advance, dating to c 115,000-10,000 BP, especially referring to a group of British deposits, stratified above Ipswichian Interglacial deposits. Much of northern England, Scotland, and Wales is covered by a blanket of Devensian tills, sands, and gravels and these sediments were deposited by the ice-sheet. South of the ice-sheet margin is a series of related pro-glacial and periglacial deposits. Most of the Devensian stage can be dated using radiocarbon, and by this means it has been correlated with the Weichselian in northwest Europe and the Wisconsin in North America. All these formations represent one cold stage and directly preceded our present period of predominantly warm climate (the Flandrian or Holocene). Not all of the Devensian deposits are strictly glacial; some contain abundant fossils which indicate warmer interstadial periods. Three interstadials have been defined in Britain: the Chelford Interstadial (c 61,000 bp); the Upton Warren Interstadial complex (45-25,000 bp), and the Windermere Interstadial (13-11,000 bp). Levallosian, Mousterian, and Upper Palaeolithic artifacts are found in Devensian deposits and bones of Homo Sapiens have been found in Devensian cave sediments.
dingo: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: A native Australian dog which was the only terrestrial non-marsupial carnivore and one of the few pre-European placental mammals in Australia. Introduced during the Holocene, the earliest dates are between 3500-3000 bp in Wombah, New Tasmania. At present the dingo's external origins are unknown, but the answer may bring to light human migrations and contacts between Australia and Asia in the mid-Holocene. The dog most closely resembles Indian mid-Holocene dogs.
edge-ground stone tool: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A tool classification of Pleistocene northern Australia and New Guinea and Southeast Asia comprised of hatchets, flakes, and other tools. Important sites include Nawamoyn, Malangangerr, Arnhem Land, Cape York, New Guinea Highlands. Edge-ground tools do not appear until the late Holocene elsewhere in Australia; they are completely absent from Tasmania. In Southeast Asia, it comprises flaked stone tools which are sharpened by grinding or polishing the cutting edge only. They existed in the Bacsonian and Hoabhinian periods.
Flandrian: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Of or pertaining to the period since the retreat of the ice sheet and the rise of sea-level at the end of the last glaciation in northwestern Europe. The Flandrian can be dated by radiocarbon and ranges from 10,000 bp (the end of the Devensian) up to the present day. These deposits represent the latest Quaternary interglacial stage, equivalent to the Holocene epoch. The Flandrian includes sediments similar to those of previous interglacials, deposits on archaeological sites which contain Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Dark Age, medieval, and more recent artifacts.
Gamberian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A distinctive Early Holocene industry of coastal southeast South Australia and southwest Victoria with retouched flint flake tools.
Gogoshiis Qabe: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Gure Makeke
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter of southern Somaia with Middle and Later Stone Age sequences and early Holocene burials. These graves, associated with lesser kudu horn cores, represent the earliest evidence of intentional grave goods in East Africa.
Haua Fteah: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large cave site in Cyrenaica, Libya, with the most complete sequence, back to c 78,000 BC, of Upper Pleistocene and Holocene industries known from a single site in North Africa. The oldest flint industry is a Libyan variant of the pre-Aurignacian (Libyan Amudian), and is followed successively by Levalloiso-Mousterian (60,000 years ago), Dabban (40,000 years ago), Oranian (18-16,000 years ago), Libyco-Capsian, and finally (from c 6800-6400) by Neolithic with pottery and domesticated animals. Based upon the striking of parallel-sided blades from prismatic cores, the earliest stage has clear affinities with broadly contemporary industries in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Its makers exploited both large game animals and seafood resources. There was a return to blade technology with the Dabban industry and the beginning of the Dabban occupation of Crenaica seems to have coincided with the onset of very arid conditions in the Saharan regions to the south. The Oranian had small backed bladelets.
Hoabinhian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Hoabinh
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A little-known Mesolithic or Neolithic culture (early-to-mid-Holocene stone tool industry) of southeast Asia (type site is Hoa Binh, Vietnam) dating from 10,000-2000 BC. There are many chipped, pecked, and polished stone axes found in piles of shells. Its importance lies in its position between the earliest centers of rice growing in India and China, and in the part it most have played in diffusing the knowledge of agriculture into Indonesia and the Pacific. The Neolithic assemblages have pottery and ground stone tools for several millennia after 6000 BC. It is best described as a techno-complex with successive cultural accretions, the Hoabinhian cannot be regarded as an archaeological culture of chronological horizon. The majority of Hoabinhian sites found to date are in rock shelters and coastal shell middens. The three recognized phases are: archaic with unifacially worked pebble tools, intermediate with smaller pebble tools and bifacial working and edge-grinding, and late characterized by some pottery, smaller scrapers, grinding stones, knives, piercers, polished stone tools, and shell artifacts.
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.
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.
interglacial: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: adj interglacial
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A warm period between two glaciations during with little or no glacial ice, warm climate processes, deposits, flora and fauna, and increased soil formation. The ice sheets diminish in area, and the improved climate allows the growth of temperate types of vegetation. The last 10,000 years (the Holocene) is probably an interglacial. During the Quaternary, interglacials have been considerably shorter than glacials.
Kaposwa: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A late Holocene microlithic Later Stone Age industry at Kalambo Falls in northern Zambia.
Kerinci: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Highland region of west-central Sumatra with obsidian microliths similar to Tianko Panjang of the mid-Holocene and Dong Son bronze items of the later centuries BC.
Koolan 2: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Rock shelter in West Kimberley, Western Australia, where marine resources were used in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene and a radiocarbon date of 27,300 bp. It is the oldest coastal site in Australia.
Koongine: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Limestone cave in southeast South Australia, occupied from 9000 bp that lasted 1000-2000 years. The stone assemblage gives an Early Holocene date for the Gambieran industry. It was only reoccupied within the last 1000 years.
Lake Condah: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Complex of stone structures in southwest Victoria, Australia, including fish traps and huts, postdating the Late Pleistocene c 4000 bp. Fish-trap systems characterize the Holocene and may have been part of ceremonial gatherings.
Lake Mungo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Mungo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A dry lake with an associated lunette in the Willandra Lakes, a complex of former Pleistocene lakes in western New South Wales, Australia. Excavation of the lunette has produced the best authenticated series of radiocarbon dates for the earliest evidence of man's occupation of Australia, and the remains of a cremated human female date to c 26,000 bp, the oldest evidence of cremation in the world. The remains of a man in an extended inhumation covered with red ochre is dated to c 30,000 bp. Stone tools belong to the Australian Core Tool and Scraper Tradition and there are artifact scatters, freshwater shell middens, and hearths dated by thermoluminescence to 31,400-36,400 years ago. The Willandra Lakes started to dry up c 13,000 BC. The appearance of grinding stones in this period suggest adaptation to wild grain exploitation. Intensive occupation ceased with increasing aridity, although sporadic visits occurred during the Holocene.
Lhokseumawe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Marine shell middens of the mid-Holocene on the coast of northeast Sumatra. There are Hoabinhian stone tools, especially sumatraliths.
loess: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A wind-borne rock dust (very fine sediments, silt) carried from outwash deposits and moraines and laid down as a thick stratum during periglacial conditions in the steppe country surrounding the ice sheets. Wind erosion was widespread in the periglacial zone that surrounded the large Quaternary ice sheets. Material was picked up by the wind from the large expanses of proglacial deposits at the ice sheet margins. Because of its exceptional fertility, areas of loess were chosen for settlement by early agriculturists. In central and eastern Europe, as well as Asia and North America, there are notable concentrations of sites on loess. It provided good grazing for the animals on which Palaeolithic man fed, was rich in nutrients for plants, and was later settled by Neolithic farmers who found it easy to till with primitive equipment. It is an essentially unconsolidated, unstratified calcareous silt; commonly it is homogeneous, permeable, and buff to gray in color, and contains calcareous concretions and fossils. Loess is important archaeologically as soil erosion in these regions during the Holocene caused substantial redeposition of this silt, often burying (deeply) and preserving archaeological sites. In semiarid regions people such as the Pueblo Indians made houses and fortresslike closed edifices from loess-based adobe.
Maros point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Small hollow-based stone projectile points, often with serrated edge-retouch, characteristic of a mature phase of the Toalian industry of southwestern Sulawesi, India, c 6000 BC into the 1st millennium BC. They were part of a mid-Holocene stone flake and blade industry.
Melanesia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The region comprising New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomons, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, and minor intermediate groups. Early Australoid settlers reached New Guinea when it was joined to Australia, by at least 30,000-40,000 years ago, and the New Guinea Highlands have a long, stable archaeological sequence extending into the Holocene (Kospie, Kiowa, Kafianvana). The Highlands may also have seen an independent development of early Holocene horticulture (Kuk). The Bismarcks and Solomons (Kilu) seem to have been occupied by c 30,000 bp. Settlement of the rest of Melanesia may have occurred as part of the expansion of Austronesian speakers in the Pacific. Major archaeological entities include the Lapita culture and the Manaasi pottery tradition.
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.
Middle Awash: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: River valley of northeast Ethiopia with rich Hominid fossil finds as well as archaeological sites dating from the Miocene to the Holocene. Australopithecine fossils from c 4.5-2.5 million years ago (mainly A. afarensis) and some of the oldest-known stone artifacts in the world (flaked cobble Oldowan Complex, c 3-2.5 mya) were found there.
Ounan Point: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Pointed bladelet with basal stem used in North African Late Pleistocene and Holocene, such as in Ounanian and Early Neolithic industries of the Eastern Sahara.
Pacitanian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Patjitanian; Pacitan, Patjitan
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A pebble and flake tool industry with a small percentage of bifaces found in valleys in south-central Java, Indonesia. The region is known as Pacitan or Patjitan. The chopper and chopping tools were of a middle and late Pleistocene time. These tools were also a small part of a late Pleistocene and early Holocene industry.
Paleo-Arctic tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A tradition grouping industries of the Early Holocene in the western Arctic, including American Paleo-Arctic and Siberian Paleo-Arctic which are derived from Siberian Upper Paleolithic. Common features are blades and microblades, small wedge-shaped cores of campus" type various kinds of bifaces in varying degrees foliated end scrapers side scrapers and often burins of thick flakes."
Philippines: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An archipelago of about 7,100 islands and islets lying about 500 miles (800 km) off the southeastern coast of Asia. A firm archaeological sequence began there c 30,000 years ago, at Tabon Cave on Palawan Island. There are Late Pleistocene stone industries, the spread of a small flake and blade technology after 5000 BC (Holocene), and the arrival and rapid spread of Austronesian-speaking horticulturists after 3000 BC. Rich jar-burial assemblages occur in the islands from about 1000 BC; bronze and iron appear later. Chinese traders visited and lived on the islands from about 1000 AD. Indian culture reached the archipelago during the 14th-16th centuries via Indonesian kingdoms, notably the Java-based kingdom of Majapahit. This is particularly noticeable in Philippine languages and literatures where Sanskrit loanwords and ancient Indian motifs abound. At the beginning of the 15th century Filipinos were primarily shifting cultivators, hunters, and fishermen with animistic beliefs. Islam was introduced later in the same century, followed by Ferdinand Magellan's discovery of the Philippines in 1521.
Pitted-Ware culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: In Sweden and Finland, a series of foraging groups during the 3rd-1st millennia BC, part of the circumpolar complex of Holocene foragers. Amber ornaments were made widely and communities depended on seals and pigs for subsistence.
Pleistocene: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ice age, Ice Age, Oiluvium; Quaternary; Great Ice Age; Pleistocene Epoch
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A geochronological division of geological time, an epoch of the Quaternary period following the Pliocene. During the Pleistocene, large areas of the northern hemisphere were covered with ice and there were successive glacial advances and retreats. The Lower Pleistocene began c 1.8 million years ago, the Middle Pleistocene c 730,000 years ago, and the Upper Pleistocene c 127,000 years ago; it ended about 10,000 years ago. Most present-day mammals appeared during the Pleistocene. The onset of the Pleistocene was marked by an increasingly cold climate, by the appearance of Calabrian mollusca and Villafranchian fauna with elephant, ox, and horse species, and by changes in foraminifera. The oldest form of man had evolved by the Early Pleistocene (Australopithecus), and in archaeological terms the cultures classed as Palaeolithic all fall within this period. By the mid-Pleistocene, Homo sapiens evolved in Africa and Europe. Homo sapiens spread to Asia and the Americas before the end of the epoch. There were mass extinctions of large and small fauna during the Pleistocene. In North America more than 30 genera of large mammals became extinct within a span of roughly 2,000 years during the late Pleistocene. Of the many causes that have been proposed by scientists for these faunal extinctions, the two most likely are changing environment with changing climate, and the disruption of the ecological pattern by early humans. The Pleistocene was succeeded by the Holocene or present epoch.
Pleistocene Series: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of the Quaternary System defined by its deposits. It is a worldwide division of rocks deposited during the Pleistocene Epoch (1,600,000-10,000 years ago). It overlies rocks from the Pliocene Epoch (5.3-1.6 million years ago) and is itself overlain by rocks of the Holocene Series; together these two latter divisions make up the Quaternary System. These deposits contain evidence of humans and their development throughout glacial and interglacial conditions. . By international agreement, the global stratotype section/point for the base of the Pleistocene Series is in the Vrica section in Calabria, Italy. The Pleistocene's boundary with the Pliocene occurs just above the position of the magnetic reversal that marks the Olduvai Normal Polarity Subzone, thus allowing the worldwide correlation of Pleistocene rocks with reference to the magneto-stratigraphic timescale.
Pre-Boreal: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pre-Boreal Climatic Interval
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A division of Holocene chronology which began about 10,000 years ago and ended about 9,500 years ago. The Pre-Boreal Climatic Interval preceded the Boreal Climatic Interval and was a time of increasing climatic moderation. Birch-pine forests and tundra were dominant. It is a subdivision of the Flandrian Interglacial and represents the start of the Flandrian.
Quaternary: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Quaternary era; Quaternary Period; Quaternary System
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Major geochronological subdivision which includes the Pleistocene (c 1.8-2.45 million years bp) and Holocene (c 10,000 BC) epochs and marked by the appearance of near-humans and Homo sapiens. It is the second period of the Cenozoic geologic era, following the Tertiary, the youngest of the 11 periods in Earth history. These terms may also be applied to groups of deposits, which are described as the Quaternary 'System' and the Pleistocene or Holocene 'Series'. The base of the Quaternary System is defined by basal deposits that overlie Pliocene deposits. The Quaternary was marked by repeated invasions of vast areas of mid-latitude North America and northwestern Eurasia by ice sheets, the period is frequently referred to as the Great Ice Age.
Qurum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ras al Hamra
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Sites on the coast of Oman, Arabia, with evidence of mid-Holocene hunting-gathering / maritime people. There are extensive cemeteries on the sites.
Sampung: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Area in east-central Java and name of a mid-Holocene industry characterized by stone points and bone tools. The sites include Gua Lawa, Gunung Cantalan, Petpuruh, Sodong, and Marjan.
Sangiran: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Important site for Indonesian finds of Homo erectus in the Solo River valley of Java. Rich fossil-bearing deposits of both Middle Pleistocene (Trini fauna) and Lower Pleistocene (Djetis fauna) have yielded fossils of more than four hominid individuals from each level, including five skulls from the later level of perhaps c 0.5-1 million years ago. The name was also used for a stone small-flake industry of the Middle Pleistocene. The human-made flakes are now mainly attributed to the High Terrace Gravels of the late Pleistocene or the Holocene.
Sub-Atlantic: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sub-Atlantic Climatic period, Sub-Atlantic Climatic Interval
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: Last of the five postglacial climate and vegetation periods of northern Europe, beginning c 1500 BC (according to pollen analysis, though radiocarbon dating says c 225 BC). It is a division of Holocene chronology (10,000 years ago-present). The Sub-Atlantic Interval followed the Sub-Boreal Climatic Interval and continues today. It is a subdivision of the Flandrian, thought to be wet and cold, a trend started in the preceding Sub-Boreal period. There was a dominance of beech forests and the fauna were essentially modern. During the Iron Age, pollen analysis shows evidence of intensified forest clearance for mixed farming. Sea levels have been generally regressive during this time interval, though North America is an exception.
Sub-Boreal: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sub-Boreal Climatic period, subboreal
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: One of the five postglacial climate and vegetation periods of northern Europe, occurring c 3000-1500 BC or, according to some, 0 AD, based on pollen analysis. The Sub-Boreal, dated by radiocarbon methods, began c 5,100 years ago and ended about 2,200 years ago. It is a division of Holocene chronology (10,000 years ago-present). The Sub-Boreal Climatic Interval followed the Atlantic and preceded the Sub-Atlantic Climatic Interval. It was characterized by a cooler and moister climate than that of the preceding Atlantic period. It is a subdivision of the Flandrian, starting with the Elm Decline. Frequencies of tree pollen fall and herbaceous pollen rises, representing man's invasion of the forest in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. It is correlated with pollen zone VIII, and the climate was warm and dry. The Sub-Boreal forests were dominated by oak and ash and show the first evidence of extensive burning and clearance by humans. Domesticated animals and natural fauna were abundant.
thumbnail scraper: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small convex scraper the size and shape of a thumbnail, found in both Pleistocene and Holocene contexts in Australia. Finely worked examples are part of the Australian Small Tool Tradition. Increasingly reported from Pleistocene sites and distinctive feature of southwestern Tasmanian Pleistocene and Victoria assemblages from about 24,000 years ago.
Tintan: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Holocene site in northern Mauritania, Africa, with 50 skeletons of the Mechta-Afalou type.
Toalian industry: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: Mid-Holocene stone flake and blade industry of a number of caves in southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, c 6000 BC and later. The industry developed out of preceding flake industries and is characterized by small backed flakes and microliths, and well-made Maros points. The Toalian industry may have continued into the 1st millennium AD and overlapped with pottery from the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest traces of human habitation on Celebes are stone implements of the Toalian culture.
Ulu Leang: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important rock shelter in the Maros region of southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, with a sequence c 8000-6000 BC in the early Holocene. It illustrates the development of the Toalian microlithic industry, with flake and bone tools.
Ushki Lake: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ushki
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Five sites in Kamchatka, Siberia, with Neolithic levels overlying Upper Palaeolithic. Wedge-shaped cores and sidescrapers have been dated to the early Holocene c 8790 bp. A Dyuktai culture assemblage is dated to c 10,760-10360 bp. The lowest layer is c 14,300-13,600 bp with stemmed bifacial points and perforated stone ornaments. Hearths and a burial were excavated in this level, with red ochre surviving. This is the only Palaeolithic site in Siberia to represent a tundra rather than a forest adaptation.
Würm: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Würm Glaciation
CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: The fourth and final Pleistocene glaciation in the European Alps, c 110,000/70,000-10,000 years ago, ending with the onset of the postglacial Holocene. The Würm glacial stage followed the Riss-Würm interglacial and is correlated with the Weichsel glacial stage of northern Europe and the Wisconsin glacial stage of North America. It is divided into early, middle, and late phases. The end of the Würm and the retreat of the final glaciers was a complex of minor retreats and advances.
Wilson Butte Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site of long occupation on the Snake River Plain in Idaho, starting c 14,500 bp -- possibly one of the oldest occupations in North America. It is located on what is thought to be one of the major migration routes to the interior. Another date of 12,500 BC from an overlying stratum indicates the presence of man south of the ice at the height of the Wisconsin glaciation. Six layers covering a period of 10,000 years have been defined, five of which are middle-late Holocene. There are few artifacts, but tool assemblages indicate a hunting and gathering way of life prior to the Clovis specialization. the artifacts are biface, retouched blade, and flake.

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