Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for site:

andesite: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A dark, fine-grained volcanic rock
andesite line: CATEGORY: geography; geology
DEFINITION: The line dividing the Pacific between the Asiatic and Pacific plates through Polynesia. The rocks to its west are continental rocks, including andesitic basalts. To the east are coral atolls and volcanic islands of olivine basalts and other rocks.
archaeological site: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: site; archeological site
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Any concentration of artifacts, ecofacts, features, and structures manufactured or modified by humans.
closed site: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: An archaeological site located within a pyramid, chambered tomb, barrow (burial mound), sealed cave, or rock shelter.
composite: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: composite order of architecture
CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: The fifth of the classical orders of architecture, a blend of the Ionic and Corinthian styles (specifically the Ionic grafted upon the Corinthian). Examples are the arches of Septimus Severus, Titus, Bacchus, and baths of Diocletian.
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.
composite mold: CATEGORY: artifact; geology
DEFINITION: A kind of mold for making metal objects which can have three or more pieces. It may be a simple bivalve mold with the addition of a third part -- a plug which will form a socket in the artifact when it is removed.
composite plan: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A plan showing a surface which is composed of two or more units of stratification; the plan of a phase or period interface.
composite shape: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A vessel shape that in silhouette is marked by characteristic points of angles or corners and lacks inflection points
composite soil: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: welded soil, superimposed soil, polypedomorphic soil
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A soil profile that forces its features upon more than one parent material.
composite tool: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A tool formed of two or more joined parts, e.g. composite toggling harpoon head"."
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.
deposited assemblage: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Set of carcasses or body parts deposited on a site.
felsite: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A dense, fine-grained, igneous rock consisting typically of feldspar and quartz
find-spot or find spot: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: find-place, find-site
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The location where an archaeological find is discovered.
formation process: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: site formation process
CATEGORY: term; technique
DEFINITION: The total of the processes -- natural and cultural, individual and combined -- that affected the formation and development of the archaeological record. Natural formation processes refer to natural or environmental events which govern the burial and survival of the archaeological record. Cultural formation processes include the deliberate or accidental activities of humans. On a settlement site, for example, the nature of human occupation, the activities carried out, the pattern of breakage and loss of material, rubbish disposal, rebuilding, or re-use of the same area will all influence the surviving archaeological deposits. After the site's abandonment, it will be further affected by such factors as erosion, glaciation, later agriculture, the activities of plants and animals, as well as the natural processes of chemical action in the soil. Reconstruction of these processes helps to relate the observed evidence of an archaeological site to the human activity responsible for it.
habitation site: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A general term for any area that has evidence of a domestic activity, such as food preparation. Any site where people lived in the past.
historic archaeology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: historical archaeology; historic sites archaeology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: A branch of archaeological study and interpretation that deals with literate societies -- the objects and events since the beginnings of recorded history. In North America, historically documented research is directed at colonial and post-colonial settlement, analogous to the study of medieval and post-medieval archaeology in Europe.
Historic Sites Act of 1935: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A United States law that declared it a national policy to identify and protect important archaeological and historical sites on federal land. An act that provided for the preservation of historic American sites, buildings, objects, and antiquities of national significance and for other purposes.
Kassites: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A people of the central Zagros mountains who occupied Babylon after the Hittite raid c 1595 BC and who had a distinctive culture and language. Their occupation ended with the city's conquest by Assyria and Elam c 1157 BC. The Kassites may or may not have been Indo-Europeans, but their rulers were probably Indo-Aryan aristocracy who taught them horsebreeding and riding, which they introduced into Mesopotamia. One important source of information on the Kassites was the Amarna correspondence on foreign relations of 14th century BC. The Kassites used distinctive boundary stones called kudurru. The Kassite rule represents the longest episode of political integration in the history of southern Mesopotamia. Important sites are Aqar Quf, Warka, and Nippur.
kill site: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: kill-site
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Any archaeological site that was primarily used for killing and butchering animals. It is recognized by its distinctive location, tools assemblages, or animal bone evidence. These sites are also recognized through taphonomy.
kiln site: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Centers for the production of glazed stonewares during the early 2nd millennium AD on mainland Asia. The best-known were at Phnom Kulen and Buriram (Angkor), Go Sanh (Champa), and Kalong and Sukhothai (Thailand). There were also sites in north Vietnam and Burma.
Lindner Site, Nauwalabila: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Painted sandstone shelter in Arnhem Land, northern Australia, dating to 20,000 years ago. The lowest levels have Australian Core Tool and Scraper tradition artifacts of older than 18,000 bp. There are edge-ground tools dating c 14,000 bp, Australian Small Tool tradition points of about 6000 bp, and then adzes about 3500 bp.
Maupiti burial site: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Maupiti burial ground
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Eastern Polynesian burial site on Maupiti, Society Islands, dated to 800-1200 AD. There are 16 flexed and extended burials with grave goods of adzes, pendants, pearl-shell fishhooks paralleling the Hane in the Marquesas, and elsewhere in the Society Islands at Vaito'otia (at Huahine) and in New Zealand.
moated site: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: A class of sites in places like Thailand, Cambodia, England, Ireland, and Flanders. In the first two, they are known from protohistoric and early historic sites and are settlements encircled by one or more irregular moats. In England, Ireland, and Flanders, they were built during the late medieval period. There was a tradition of building defensive moats around castles and manorial establishments and it was taken up by wealthy farmers later. In marshy areas, a moat provided an extra means of drainage when the climate was deteriorating and acted as a source of both dry-season water and edible aquatic flora and fauna.
non-site archaeology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: off-site archaeology; landscape archaeology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The recovery and analysis of unclustered physical remains produced by human activities. Non-site archaeology generally concentrates on remains recovered in a surface or plow zone context. It is an approach, especially in archaeological survey, where the unit of analysis is the artifact rather than the site. Practitioners document the distribution of humanly-modified materials across the landscape.
nonsite archaeology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: non-site archaeology; off-site archaeology; landscape archaeology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The recovery and analysis of unclustered physical remains produced by human activities. Non-site archaeology generally concentrates on remains recovered in a surface or plow zone context. It is an approach, especially in archaeological survey, where the unit of analysis is the artifact rather than the site. Practitioners document the distribution of humanly-modified materials across the landscape.
obsidian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: hyalopsite, Iceland agate, mountain mahogany
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A jet-black to gray, naturally occurring volcanic glass, formed by rapid cooling of viscous lava. It was often used as raw material for the manufacture of stone tools and was very popular as a superior form of flint for flaking or as it is easily chipped to form extremely sharp edges. Obsidian breaks with a conchoidal fracture and is easily chipped into precise and delicate forms. It was very widely traded from the anciently exploited sources in Hungary, Sardinia, Lipari of Sicily, Melos in the Aegean, central and eastern Anatolia, Mexico, etc. Chemical analysis of their trace elements now allows most of the sources to be distinguished (especially by neutron activation and x-ray fluorescence spectrometry), so that the pattern of trade spreading out from each can be traced. Two dating methods have been applied to obsidian: obsidian hydration dating and fission track dating. In Europe, obsidian was exploited extensively from c 6000-3000 BC; after 3000 BC it generally went out of favor for everyday purposes (perhaps as a result of competition from metal tools) but it continued to be used for prestige objects in some areas, especially by the Minoans and Mycenaeans. Obsidian has been quarried and traded by western Melanesians since at least 19,000 bp, with the earliest-used and most important source being that at Talasea on New Britain. Obsidian was also an important trade item in Mesoamerica.
off-site archaeology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: non-site archaeology, landscape archaeology
CATEGORY: branch; technique
DEFINITION: The recovery and analysis of unclustered physical remains produced by human activities. Non-site archaeology generally concentrates on remains recovered in a surface or plow zone context. It is an approach, especially in archaeological survey, where the unit of analysis is the artifact rather than the site. Practitioners document the distribution of humanly-modified materials across the landscape.
off-site area: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Any site with low densities of artifacts.
off-site data: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Unclustered physical remains produced by human activities; evidence from a range of information, including scatters of artifacts and features such as plowmarks and field boundaries. This data can provide important evidence about human exploitation of the environment.
open site: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: open-air site
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A term for any archaeological site not located within a cave or rock shelter.
settlement site: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: settlement
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A location that is or was habitation
shadow sites: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: Surface shadows on an archaeological site that are caused by irregularities in elevation, indicating the presence of submerged features such as earthworks and ditches. Such sites are identified from the air, especially in aerial photography. Shadow sites are best seen in the low sun of evenings and early mornings. Oblique light can show reduced topography of sites invisible from the ground.
site: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Any location that demonstrates past human activity, as evidence by the presence of artifacts, features, ecofacts, or other material remains; a single place in which excavation or reconnaissance has revealed objects or data of archaeological interest. The definition implies that such a location was utilized by humans for a sufficient period of time to develop features or become a deposit ground for artifacts. Sites can range from small, temporary camps to large, complex cities, from a living site to a quarry site, and from one artifact to many levels of occupation. Major types of sites include domestic / habitation sites, kill-sites, and processing / butchering sites.
site catchment: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: site territory, catchment area
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: The area surrounding a settlement or camp that is habitually used by the inhabitants as a source of materials for food, toolmaking, and the like. It is defined as the total area from which all the animals, plants and artifacts of which there are remains preserved on the site, are derived. Each group of people living on the site is assumed to have had a 'territory', the area around the site which they habitually exploited.
site catchment analysis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: SCA; site-catchment analysis
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of reconstructing the economy of a site by studying the resources that are available within a reasonable distance, generally 1-2 hours' walking time from the site. The technique was devised by E. Higgs and C. Vita-Finzi for 'the study of the relationship between technology and those natural resources lying within economic range of individual sites', an extension of the least-cost principle. The catchment area is defined by drawing a circle around the site; the radius has often been set at 5 km (i.e. an hour's walk) for agriculturists and 10 km (i.e. two hours' walk) for hunter-gatherers, figures which represent ethnographically observed averages. Within the catchment area the proportions of such resources as arable or pastoral land are calculated, and from these figures conclusions can be drawn concerning the nature and function of the site. The technique offers a valuable and reasonably objective method for analyzing relationships between site location, technology, and available resources. This type of off-site" analysis can concentrate on the total area from which a site's contents have been derived."
site datum: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: datum point
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The master control point on an archaeological site, into which all measurements are tied.
site exploitation survey: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: SET
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of achieving a fairly standardized assessment of the area habitually used by a site's occupants.
site exploitation territory: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: The area around a particular site which would have been most intensively or frequently exploited for resources such as food. It is a central concept in palaeoeconomy.
site grid: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A set of regularly spaced intersecting north-south and east-west lines, usually marked by stakes, providing the basic reference system for recording horizontal provenience (coordinates) within a site.
site hierarchy: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The site size and functional differences within a group of roughly contemporary sites -- possibly indicating different economic arrangements, political hierarchy, etc.
site locality: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large geographic area, such as a gorge or valley, in which many separate sites are clustered.
site map: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A map depicting the details of a site, usually made by recording all observable surface features.
site plan: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A specially prepared map for recording the horizontal provenience of artifacts, food remains, and features -- keyed to topographic maps. Such a map may be designed to depict a specific detail within a site, usually a single feature or group of features.
site structure: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The arrangement of the various components of an archaeological site, including artifacts, features, and structures. Site structure analysis identifies how a space was organized and used and how it related to aspects of the cultural system. Site structure analyses are used to make warranting arguments in the context of the archaeological record and are often done in ethnoarchaeological studies.
site surface survey map: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: SSS
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A systematic and accurate map of an archaeological site and its surroundings.
site survey: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The collection of surface data and evaluation of a site's archaeological significance.
site-formation processes: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: site formation process; formation process
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The total of the processes -- natural and cultural, individual and combined -- that affected the formation and development of the archaeological record. Natural formation processes refer to natural or environmental events which govern the burial and survival of the archaeological record. Cultural formation processes include the deliberate or accidental activities of humans. On a settlement site, for example, the nature of human occupation, the activities carried out, the pattern of breakage and loss of material, rubbish disposal, rebuilding, or re-use of the same area will all influence the surviving archaeological deposits. After the site's abandonment, it will be further affected by such factors as erosion, glaciation, later agriculture, the activities of plants and animals, as well as the natural processes of chemical action in the soil. Reconstruction of these processes helps to relate the observed evidence of an archaeological site to the human activity responsible for it.
Sugu: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Sugu site group
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan, with many Yayoi settlements, cemeteries, and workshops. The Sugu site proper is a cemetery containing over 200 jar burials. The most famous burial was that of a probable political leader inside two jars, set mouth to mouth, along with at least 33 imported Chinese bronze mirrors, several bronze weapons, and ornaments of glass, stone, and antler. The fine pottery used in the funerary jars is known as the Sugu type, characteristic of the Middle Yayoi (100 BC-100 AD) of Kyushu.
surface site: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Area where archaeological remains can be found on the surface of the ground.
surface survey: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: site surface survey
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of data collection in which archaeological finds are gathered from the ground surface of sites and then evaluated. Surface survey helps to establish the types of activity on the site, locate major structures, and gather information on the most densely occupied areas of the site that could be most productive for total or sample excavation. There are two basic kinds of surface survey: unsystematic and systematic. The former involves fieldwalking, i.e. scanning the ground along one's path and recording the location of artifacts and surface features. Systematic survey less subjective and involves a grid system which is walked systematically, thus making the recording of finds more accurate. Surface survey usually includes the mapping of features. The study of the distribution of surviving features, and the recording and possible collecting of artifacts from the surface.
telehistoric site: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Prehistoric sites far removed from the origination of written records.
Thunderbird: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Thunderbird site
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Palaeoindian and Archaic campsites at Flint Run, Virginia, with a long-exploited jasper quarry. Core fragments, flakes, and broken or preformed tools show a large flint knapping industry. Occupations began in Clovis times through the Archaic. Postholes in association with living floors dated to c 9000 BC raises the possibility of this being the site of the earliest house structures in America.
type site: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: type-site, typesite
CATEGORY: term; technique
DEFINITION: A site that establishes the typical content of a particular culture, taken as characteristic of a given cultural group. Often, it is the site on which that group was first recognized. An example is al-Badari, the type site of the Badarian culture.
UNESCO World Heritage Site: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site (such as a forest, mountain, lake, desert, monument, building, complex, or city) that is on the list that is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, a place of either cultural or physical significance.
wet-site excavation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Technique of excavating waterlogged sites by pumping water through hoses to spray the dirt away and expose archaeological features and artifacts.
A Group: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: A Horizon, A-Group
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A term created by American archaeologist George Reisner to refer to a semi-nomadic Nubian Neolithic culture of the mid-fourth to early third millennium BC. The term has evolved into a horizon" because there was also a C Group and the term was misleading that there were two separate ethnic groups rather than two phases of Nubian material culture. Traces of the A group which may have evolved from the Abkan culture survive throughout Lower Nubia. An important site is Afyeh near Aswan Sayala and Qustul. There is evidence among the grave goods that the A Group was engaged in regular trade with the Egyptians of the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods. The A Group was eventually replaced by the C Group during the Old Kingdom. The existence of a B Group has now been rejected."
Aachen: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: French Aix la Chapelle, Dutch Aken
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in northwestern Germany which is the site of a palace complex of Carolingian buildings, particularly a chapel built by Odo of Metz for Charlemagne between 790-805. Aachen was the capital of Charlemagne's kingdom and the Palatine Chapel (also called Palace Chapel or Octagon), was part of the Cathedral of Aachen. This complex served as Charlemagne's court and national church of the empire. The chapel is the only surviving structure and the most important surviving example of Carolingian architecture. The chapel contains Charlemagne's marble-slab throne, which was used for the coronations of 32 Holy Roman emperors from 936-1531. Odo of Metz modeled it after the Byzantine-style Church of San Vitale at Ravenna.
Abada, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A 'Ubaid site in Iraq with important architecture of the 'Ubaid and Uruk periods.
Abbevillian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abbevillean, Chellean, Abbeville
CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The name for the period of the earliest handax industries of Europe, taken from Abbeville, the type site near the mouth of the River Somme in northern France. The site is a gravel pit in which crudely chipped oval or pear-shaped handaxes were discovered, probably dating to the Mindel Glaciation. This was one of the key places which showed that man was of great antiquity. Starting in 1836, Boucher de Perthes excavated the pits and the significance of these discoveries was recognized around 1859. These pits became one of the richest sources of Palaeolithic tools in Europe. In 1939, Abbé Breuil proposed the name Abbevillian for both the handax and the industry, which preceded the Acheulian in Europe.
Abdul Hosein, Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An aceramic Neolithic site of Iran's Zagros mountains with mud-brick structures, chipped and ground stone tools, clay figurines, and evidence of barley and emmer cultivation.
Abeurador, Balma: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Epipalaeolithic to Late Neolithic cave site in France with 10 layers of human occupation from c 9000-2500 BC.
Abingdon: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The type site for a Neolithic pottery c. 3900-3200 BC, found in a causewayed camp about 15 km south of Oxford, England. The pottery is fairly heavy and formed into round-bottomed bowls with frequent-stroke decoration and some having handles.
Abingdon ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The type site for a Neolithic pottery c. 3900-3200 BC, found in a causewayed camp about 15 km south of Oxford, England. The pottery is fairly heavy and formed into round-bottomed bowls with frequent-stroke decoration and some having handles.
abri: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: French word meaning shelter" used to refer to the Palaeolithic shallow rock caves or shelters found in the limestone region of southern France. The abri was the living site in the front of a cave under a shelf of overhanging rock."
Abri Pataud: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site or a rock shelter near the village of Les Eyzies (Dordogne) in the Vézère valley of southwestern France. It has a very rich Upper Palaeolithic sequence of more than 14 main culture layers with radiocarbon dates from c 32,500 BC, beginning with Aurignacian deposits containing saucerlike living hollows with central hearths. The Aurignacian levels are followed by Perigordian and Proto-Magdalenian and probably Proto-Solutrean levels. Art objects have been found and a skeleton in a top layer. The various kinds of hearths and living areas may suggest different social groups inhabiting the area.
Absolon, Karel (1887-1960): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A Czech archaeologists who excavated at Dolni Vestonice, Ondratice, Pekarna, Byci Skala, and other Palaeolithic sites.
Abu Ballas: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Western Desert of Egypt, occupied 8500-5000 years ago.
Abu Gurab: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abu Ghurob
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the west bank of the Nile between Giza and Saqqara, originally called the Pyramid of Righa" and containing the remains of a sun temple erected by the 5th Dynasty King Nyuserra (2445-2421 BC) whose pyramid is at Abusir just to the south. The building of a sun temple to Ra in addition to a royal pyramid complex was customary in the 5th Dynasty. Abu Gurah is the best preserved of the two surviving examples (Userkaf at Abusir is the other.). Reliefs from the temple were sent to museums in Germany but a number of them were destroyed during World War II."
Abu Hureyra, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small tell on the Euphrates River, 120 km east of Aleppo in Syria. The site was excavated in 1972-73 prior to flooding by the Tabqua/Tabqa Dam. Two major phases of occupation were found: Mesolithic or Epi-Palaeolithic (early 9th millennium BC) to a Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Culture in the 6th millennium. There was a long period of abandonment in the 7th millennium and then a final abandonment c 5800 BC. The site depicted a transition from gathering to cultivation, including large quantities of einkorn wheat, and from hunting to herding (sheep and goats, also gazelle and onager). The Neolithic settlement was of enormous size, larger than any other recorded site of this period -- even Çatal Hüyük. In the uppermost levels, a dark burnished pottery appeared.
Abu Ruwaysh: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abu Rawash; Abu Roash
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The Egyptian site of the unfinished pyramid of the 4th Dynasty ruler Djedefra (Redjedef) (c 2566-2558 BC), the third of the seven kings of that dynasty. The pyramid, situated northwest of Giza on the west bank of the Nile, appears unfinished because the walls to the mortuary temple next to it were hastily made of mud brick instead of the usual cut stone. The complex was deliberately ransacked as Djedefra was involved in a dynastic struggle. An Early Dynastic (c. 2925- c. 2575 BC) private cemetery has also been found at Abu Ruwaysh.
Abu Salabikh, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of southern Mesopotamia with evidence of the Early Dynastic III and Uurk times. Many texts, including the earliest-known literary works of Sumerian literature. I.J. Gelb proposed the name 'Kish civilization' to identify this culture of the mid-3rd millennium.
Abu Simbel: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abu sunbul
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of two rock-cut temples of the Egyptian king Rameses II (1279-1213 BC), located southeast of Aswan, formerly Nubia. The facade of the largest temple is dominated by four 20-meter-high (67 feet) seated figures of Rameses and the main part of the temple is cut into the solid rock of the hillside, penetrating it about 55 meters. The temples were salvaged in the 1960s from the rising waters of the Nile, caused by the erection of the Aswan High Dam. The temples were discovered by the traveler Jean-Louis Burckhardt in 1813 and cleared by Egyptologist Giovanni Battista Belzoni four years later. There are also reliefs illustrating the king's life, accomplishments, and military campaigns in Syria and Nubia, small figures representing Rameses' queen, Nefertari, and their children; and graffiti providing important evidence of the early history of the alphabet. It was also built so that, on certain days of the year, the first rays of the morning sun would penetrate its length and illuminate the shrine in the innermost sanctuary. The smaller temple was dedicated to Nefertari for the worship of the goddess Hathor. Between 1964-1968, a UNESCO- and Egyptian-sponsored task began with a team of international engineers and scientists and funds from more than 50 countries to uncover and disassemble both temples and reconstruct them on high ground 60 meters (200 feet) above the riverbed.
Abu Sir: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abusir
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient site between Giza and Saqqara where several 5th Dynasty (c. 2494-2345 BC) kings built their pyramids, a sun temple, a number of mastaba tombs, and Late Period (747-332 BC) shaft tombs. The pyramids were poorly constructed; those of King Userkaf and King Neuserre have been excavated.
Abydos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Abdjw
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Anatolian site, which was a pilgrimage center for the worship of the god Osiris and the chosen burial place of the pharaohs of the 1st Dynasty. Located on the east side of the Dardanelles and west bank of the Nile northeast of modern Canakkale, it flourished from the Predynastic period until Christian times (c. 4000 BC-AD 641) and survived until late Byzantine times as the toll station of the Hellespont. The earliest significant remains are the tombs of the Protodynastic and Early Dynastic periods (c. 3100-2686 BC), including that of Seti I of the 19th Dynasty (c. 1300 BC). From the 2nd Dynasty, the royal graves were at Saqqara. It was from Abydos that Xerxes crossed the strait to invade Greece in 480 BC.
Abydos ware: CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Pottery of Canaanite (Syro-Palestinian) origin found in the royal tombs of the First and Second Dynasties (The Old Kingdom) at Abydos, Saqqara, Abusir el-Melek, and other sites in Upper Egypt, dating to Early Bronze Age II (3300-2700 BCE). The pottery, often red-rose slipped and burnished or painted with geometric motifs, includes jugs, bottles, and jars. Most common are the red-slipped jugs, some of a hard-baked metallic" quality with handles attached to the rim and a typical stamped base. This pottery class took its name from Abydos the first site at which it was found in Upper Egypt."
Academy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Greek Academeia, Latin Academia
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: In ancient Greece, the academy or college of philosophy developed by Socrates and Plato, located just northwest of Athens. Plato acquired property there about 387 BC and used it as a training ground and to teach. At the site had been a park and gymnasium sacred to the legendary Attic hero Academus. The term Academy was not applied during Plato's time but rather to his successors till the time of Cicero (106-43 BC). It was organized for worshipping the muses and instruction included mathematics, dialectics, natural science, and political science. It was closed by the emperor Justinian in 529 AD.
acanthus: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Conventionalized representation of the leaf of the Acanthus spinosus plant, found on the lower parts of Corinthian and Composite capitals, and also used for enrichment of various elements in Classical architecture.
accuracy: CATEGORY: measure
DEFINITION: The degree to which measured values come close to actual values; opposite of bias.
Achenheim: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A French site with Lower Palaeolithic artifacts, Mousterian-type tools from the Riss glaciation, and Upper Palaeolithic materials.
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.
Acropole of Susa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southwestern Iran including a large cemetery and platform from Susa's initial occupation, dating to the end of the 5th millennium BC. The site is divided into Acropole 1 and 2; Acropole 1 has provided a sequence of 27 levels up to the Akkadian period. Some levels contain evidence of the development of writing: tablets marked with numbers, tokens in envelopes, and tablets of the Proto-Elamite script.
activity area: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A place where a specific ancient activity was located or carried out, such as food preparation or stone toolmaking. The place usually corresponded to one or more features and associated artifacts and ecofacts. In American archaeology, the term describes the smallest observable component of a settlement site. See data cluster.
Adlun: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abri Zumoffen
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic site between Sidon and Tyre on the Lebanese coast with evidence of Amudian industry and Jabrudian occupation.
Adrar Bous: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An informative site on the Tenere Desert in Niger where excavations revealed a long succession of prehistoric occupation. The first was a Levalloiso-Mousterian settlement. By early in the 4th millennium BC, food production techniques are attested. A skeleton of a domestic shorthorn ox dates to 3700 BC and remains of small stock that was herded. Cereals, as sorghum, were possibly cultivated.
Adzhi-Koba: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic cave site in the Ukraine with an assemblage of Middle Palaeolithic artifacts, an Upper Palaeolithic occupation with artifacts similar to those of Syuren' I.
Aegina: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age island site between Piraeus and the Peloponnese with a temple of the Doric order and also the temple of Aphaia which depicted the two sackings of Troy.
aerial archaeology: CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The study and location of archaeological sites and features through the use of aerial observation, photography, and surveys.
aerial photographic map: CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A map of a site, feature, or region made through aerial photography. Professional photographic and cartographic techniques make possible the preparation of contour maps and three-dimensional models of surfaces.
aerial photography: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: air photography, aerophotography, aerial reconnaissance
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A technique of photographic observation and survey of the ground from an aircraft, spacecraft, or satellite which provides detailed information about sites and features without excavation. It is most important for locating archaeological sites before destruction of the landscape through building, road construction, or modern agricultural practices. When viewed from the air, sites may be revealed as crop marks, soil marks, shadow marks, or frost marks. For example, the plan of a site, ditches, walls, pits, etc. can be reflected in the way the crops grew (crop marks) or a pattern of dark occupation soil may show against a lighter topsoil or stone from walls may be just under the surface (soil marks). Oblique aerial photos, from lower altitudes, detect shadows created by earthworks and permit more detailed interpretations of known sites (shadow marks). Variations in the amount of frost retained on the ground may indicate the presence of buried archaeological features (frost marks). Though these can sometimes be recognized on the ground by careful fieldwalking and contour planning, much larger areas can be examined from the air and overall patterns will be clearer. The same site may not be susceptible every year to aerial photographs, as local climatic variation affects the nature of the feature fillings; a site may only be seen once in ten or twenty years. The use of false-color infrared photography has increased the versatility of aerial photography and the development of photogrammetry allows the accurate mapping of both archaeological and geographical information. Recording of thermographic and radar images complements photographic methods. Aerial photography has proved to be one of the most successful methods of discovering archaeological sites. Large areas of ground can be covered quickly, and the ground plan of a new site can be plotted from the photographs. Features can be revealed in extraordinary detail by these means. The pioneers of this technique were O.G.S. Crawford and Major Allen in Britain and Père Poidebard in Syria, though its first use goes back to 1906 at Stonehenge.
aerial survey: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: aerial reconnaissance
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: An important survey technique for locating and defining archaeological sites from the air.
Afontova: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Upper Palaeolithic sites of a culture located in south-central Siberia of c 20,000-10,000 BP. Artifacts include wedge-shaped microcores, microblades, and scrapers. Reindeer, woolly mammoth, and arctic fox were common.
Afunfun: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early copper-working sites of Niger from the 2nd millennium BC.
Agate Basin: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A Palaeoindian site of Wyoming with evidence of the killing and butchering of animals. Artifacts include a distinctive point, scrapers, and eyed bone needles. The complex dates to 10,500-10,000 BP.
Aggsbach: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site on the Danube River in Austria with artifacts (endscrapers, backed blades, retouched blades) and faunal remains (woolly mammoth, reindeer, giant deer) dating to 25,700-22,450 bp, the Early Gravettian.
Agordat: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town in western Eritrea, Ethiopia, with four village sites from around the 3rd millennium BC. Surface artifacts, such as stone maceheads and ground stone axes seem related to the Nubian C Group of the Nile Valley. Other artifacts suggest an early practice of food production that may have been passed from the Nile Valley to the Ethiopian highlands.
Agrelo culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The Agrelo culture was centered in northwestern Argentina and dates from AD 1 to 1000. The type site is just south of Mendoza and it features distinctive deep, wide-mouthed pottery with parallel stepped incised lines, punctations, and fingernail impressions, typical of southern Andean tradition. Pottery spindle whorls, crude figurines, labrets, clubheads, triangular projectile points, and beads of stone have been found. Pit inhumations were marked by stone circles. The Agrelo represents the agriculture-pottery threshold in this semi-arid area. Nearby coastal pottery styles (Cienega, El Molle) may be precursors to Agrelo.
Agrigento: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: formerly Girgenti, Greek Acragas or Akragas, Latin Agrigentum; also Agrigagas
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A wealthy, flourishing Greek and Roman city near the southern coast of Sicily, Italy, originally a colony of Gela and founded by Greeks about 580 BC. The plateau site of the ancient city has extraordinarily rich Greek remains. There are extensive walls with remnants of eight gates and the remains of seven Doric temples, but there has been illegal construction in which the ruins were quarried, so little is standing where some of the buildings once were. Agrigento was sacked by the Carthaginians in 406 BC, a disaster from which it never really recovered. It was refounded by Timoleon, a Greek general and statesman, in 338 BC, but Agrigento was on the losing side for most of the Punic Wars. Agrigento returned to some commercial prosperity when textiles, sulfur and potash mining, and agriculture expanded. It was abandoned once again in the Christian era though areas were used as Roman and Christian cemeteries and catacombs. There is some evidence for even earlier settlement, possibly Neolithic.
Ahar: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Rajasthan, western India, belonging to the Chalcolithic Banas culture and dated c. 2500-1500 BC. The people cultivated cereal crop, hunted deer, used copper and a variety of pottery, including Black and Red Ware. A second period of occupation later in the 1st millennium BC used Northern Black Polished Ware.
Ahrensburg: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ahrensburgian
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village near Hamburg, Germany, where there are two late Palaeolithic sites, Meiendorf and Stellmoor. Stellmoor dates to 8500 BC and is attributed to the Ahrensburgian culture. Tanged points, which were possibly arrowheads, and pine arrow shafts with bowstring notches give evidence for the use of the bow and arrow. The Ahrensburgians mainly hunted reindeer.
Ai: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: at-Tall
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Canaanite town near Bethel supposedly destroyed by the Israelites and Joshua. There is a triple circuit of walls from the Early Bronze Age, c. 2900-2500 BC and imposing ruins of a temple and another large building within it. The Bronze Age site is now called at-Tall and there was only a brief reoccupation in the 12th-11th century BC.
Ai Bunar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Aibunar
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site with three copper mines, located near Stara Zagora in central Bulgaria. The open-cast mining of malachite ore beds dates to the 4th millennium BC (Karanovo VI period) and was later used in the Late Bronze Age. Quantities of this ore have been discovered in settlements in Moldavia and the Ukraine (Cucuteni-Tripolye culture).
Aichbühl: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a Middle Neolithic settlement (end of 3rd millennium BC) on the shores of Lake Federsee in southern Germany. There are foundations of about 25 rectangular houses around the lake. They were built of timber, usually divided into two rooms, and most contained a hearth and clay oven. A large central building was likely used for communal purposes and there are some storage structures. Small polished stone hatchets, bone implements, Shoe-Last Adzes, and unpainted pedestal pottery bowls are among the artifacts.
Ain Hanech: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Algeria which offers some of the earliest evidence of human occupation in northern Africa. Stone tools, including choppers and multi-faceted spheroids, dated to 1-1.5 million years ago. There is also mammal fauna of Villafranchian type associated with the tools.
Ajanta: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of Buddhist rock-cut cave temples and monasteries in central India. The group of some 30 caves from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD are celebrated for their wall paintings depicting Buddhist legends and the Buddha's incarnations. There are two types of caves, caityas (sanctuaries) and viharas (monasteries).
Ajdabiya: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ajdabiyah, Agedabia
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town in northeastern Libya near the Gulf of Sidra that was the site of Roman and Byzantine colonization and a caravan junction from Egypt to the Maghreb and a trans-Saharan route from the Sudan during the early Middle Ages. There are ruins from the earlier colonization and two important monuments from the period 912-1051 -- an early congregational mosque and a qasr (fort).
Ak-Kaya: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A group of Middle Palaeolithic sites in Crimea, Ukraine with Ak-Kaya and Zaskal'Naya artifact assemblages, including bifacial foliates, Prondnik knives, and Bockstein knives.
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.
Akhmim: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Ipu, Khent-Mim
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the east bank of the Nile opposite modern Sohag, that was the capital of the ninth nome of Upper Egypt during the Pharaonic period, c. 3100-332 BC. The earliest surviving remains are Old and Middle Kingdom rock-cut tombs. The city originally included a number of temples dedicated to Min, but few stone buildings have survived because of the plundering. Colossal statues of Rameses II and Meritamun have been excavated.
Akjoujt: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Mauritania that appears to have been an early copperworking center in Africa, from c. 5th century BC or earlier. It is one of the few Saharan or sub-Saharan areas where there may have been a Copper Age preceding the Iron Age. Arrowheads, spearheads, axes, pins, and some decorative items of copper are attributed to this period.
Akkad: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Agade
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Ancient region in what is now central Iraq and was the northern (or northwestern) division of ancient Babylonian civilization. It is an archaeologically unlocated site, in or near Babylon roughly where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are closest to each other. The name Akkad was taken from the city of Agade, which was founded by Sargon in about 2370 BC. Sargon united various city-states in the area and his rule encompassed much of Mesopotamia, creating the first empire in history.
Akkadian: CATEGORY: culture; language
DEFINITION: A Semitic-speaking dynasty founded by Sargon the Great (Sharrukin, 2334-2279 BC) c. 2370 BC with Akkad (or Agade), an unidentified site, as his capital. Under Sargon and his grandson, Naram-Sin, the dynasty established an empire that included much of Mesopotamia and neighboring Elam to the east. The dynasty saw three major developments: the beginning of the absorption of the Sumerians by the Semites, a trend from city-state to the larger territorial state, and imperial expansion. It is considered the first empire in history. Akkadian also refers to the Semitic dialects of Old Akkadian (3rd millennium) and Assyrian and Babylonian (2nd and 1st millennia). The Amarna Letters (diplomatic correspondence between Egypt and the Levant in the mid-14th century BC) are written in Babylonian, a late form of Akkadian. Akkadian was written in a cuneiform script borrowed from Sumerian and was the lingua franca of the civilized Near East for much of the 2nd millennium. It replaced Sumerian as the official language (though Sumerian was still used for religious purposes). Akkadian was gradually replaced by Aramaic.
Akrotiri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a Bronze Age town on Thera/Santorinin in the Aegean, buried by a volcano in the 16th century BC. Excavation have revealed houses with polychrome frescoes. There is evidence of links with Minoan Crete.
Al Hiba: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the city of Lagash, one of the ancient Mesopotamian centers of the city-state of Lagash, dating from Early Dynasty to Old Babylonian times. It was absorbed into Ur and eventually declined in importance.
Al Mina: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the coast of Syria near the mouth of the Orontes River that was a Greek settlement before the end of the 9th century BC and may have been Poseideion. Material from the 8th-4th centuries BC has been found, indicating further links between Greece and the Near East. Al Mina was sacked and destroyed by Ptolemy of Egypt in 413 BC.
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.
Alambra-Mouttes: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early Middle Cypriote site in eastern Cyprus with rectangular stone houses.
Alamgirpur: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The easternmost site of the Harappan civilization, northeast of Delhi in the Ganges Valley. It was a small late Harappan settlement. After a gap of unknown duration, there were later occupations which showed Painted Grey Ware and iron use.
Alapraia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a group of Copper Age rock-cut tombs near Lisbon, Portugal. It consists of simple chambers entered through smaller vestibles and includes ritual objects such as clay sandals, clay lunulae, so-called pine-cones, and Beaker pottery.
Alashiya: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site mentioned in texts of the 2nd millennium BC as a source of copper; assumed to be Cyprus. The texts also record the workings of the Sea Peoples c 1200 BC.
Aleppo: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arabic Halab, Turkish Halep
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in northern Syria which stands on the site of an ancient, as yet unexcavated, city. On the route between the Euphrates and Orontes, the ancient site is mentioned in texts from the 2nd millennium onwards as the capital of the Amorite kingdom of Yamkhad in the 18th century BC. It subsequently came under Hittite, Egyptian, Mitannian, and again Hittite rule during the 17th-14th centuries. It was known to the Hittites as Halpa. The city was conquered by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC and then controlled by the Achaemenian Persians from the 6th-4th centuries BC before the Seleucids took it over, rebuilt it, and renamed it Beroea. Aleppo was very important during the Hellenistic period for its position along trade routes. The city became part of the Roman province of Syria in the 1st century BC. Conquered by the Arabs in 637, it reverted to its old name of Halab.
Alesia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age site where the last Celtic stand against the Roman invasion in 52 BC took place. It is an oppidum with remains of Caesar's siege works.
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Alexander the Great (Alexander III), king of Macedonia, began his career of conquest in 335 BC. He overthrew the Persian Empire and laid the foundation for the territorial kingdoms of the Hellenistic world. Born in Macedonia in 356 BC, he was the son of Philip II and Olympias. He was taught by the great philosopher Aristotle from the age of 13-16. Alexander took power in Macedonia and mainland Greece in 340 BC when Philip left to attack Byzantium. By 332 BC, his arrival in Egypt ended the Persian occupation and he had already conquered much of western Asia and the Levant before his arrival in Egypt. In Egypt, Alexander made sacrifices to the gods at Memphis and visited the oracle of Amun-Ra where he was recognized as the god's son, thus restoring the true pharaonic line. He founded the city of Alexandria and then left Egypt in 331 BC to continue his conquest of the Achaemenid empire. His empire stretched from India to Egypt. After his death from a fever in 323 BC, his kingdom quickly dissolved.
Ali Kosh: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An early farming site near Deh Luran in southwestern Iran, occupied c 7500-5600 BC. It was the first excavated farming site where significant quantities of plant remains were collected using the flotation technique, a landmark in the study of farming origins. The earliest phase, named Bus Mordeh and dated c 7500-6750 BC is characterized by simple mud-brick buildings and a combination of wild and domesticated foods, some herding, and the catching of fish. The succeeding phase, Ali Kosh and dated c 6770-6000 BC had similar plants and animals, hunting and fishing, but a decline in wild plant foods which points to more successful cereal cultivation. The buildings were much more substantial in this period. The final phase, Muhammed Jaffar and dated c 6000-5600, saw the introduction of pottery and ground stone. The evidence shows some strain of over-exploitation and by the mid-6th millennium BC, the area was abandoned. The site illustrates the transition from food gathering to food production and the improvement of house-building quality.
alignment: CATEGORY: structure
DEFINITION: An arrangement of single or multiple rows of standing stones (menhirs) at a site once occupied by humans. They are found mainly in Brittany and the British Isles' highland zones and are often aligned on cairns, henge monuments, or stone circles. Some others are found in Corsica. The rows do not provide much dating evidence, but they were probably set up in the 2nd and 3rd millennium BC (Neolithic, Bronze Age).
All Cannings Cross: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A n Early Iron Age site in Wiltshire, southern England. The settlement contained rectangular houses and evidence of iron smelting. Fine haematite-coated bowls with horizontal furows above the carinations have been found.
all-purpose tool: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A rare stone artifact that could be used for perforating, cutting, and scraping - normally larger than a thumb scraper or a drill but smaller than a large knife or scraper. It always has one end worked to a point for perforation with the opposite end worked in the form of an end scraper. One side is worked rather delicately for use as a knife. It is almost always oblong in shape.
Allahdino: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village site in Pakistan near the Indus delta. It was an agricultural community of the Harappan civilization.
alluvial fan: CATEGORY: geography
DEFINITION: A deposited landform, usually by valleys or mountain fronts where tributary stream connect to larger valleys or lowlands. An alluvial fan is created by the accumulation of alluvium which spreads, or fans. They are important settlement sites because they are well-drained landscapes and resources are easily accessible.
alluvium: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: alluvial deposit, alluvion
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: The detrital material (clay, gravel, organic material, sand, silt, soil) eroded, transported, and deposited by rivers and streams. It is very fertile and was used by early farmers. Though the largest areas of alluvium are flood plains and deltas, it may also occur where a river overflows its banks and is an important constituent of shelf deposits.
Almagro Basch, Martin (1911-1984): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A Spanish archaeologist who worked on megaliths, on the dating and interpretation of prehistoric Spanish cave art, and on the site of Ampurias / Emporion.
Almizaraque: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Almeria
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A native site in southeast Spain belonging to the Copper Age Los Millares culture. Oval houses were surrounded by ditches and there is a nearby megalithic tomb, similar to those of Los Millares. Baker pottery appears in later phases.
Altamira: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the most important painted Palaeolithic caves (as is Lascaux, France) and one of the earliest discovered (1879). The site is in the Cantabrian Mountains of northeast Spain and the 280-meter long cave is famous for its polychrome animals, which include deer, bison, and wild boar painted in red, black, and a range of earth colors. Most of the art in the cave was produced by Solutrean and Magdalenian peoples, with one layer radiocarbon-dated to c 13,000 BC. The most famous panel is of 15 bison, plus deer and horses. There is also a hall with black paintings, and symbols are found in several parts of the cave. The paintings' authenticity was challenged right up to 1902 when Emile Cartailhac finally accepted that they were genuine.
Altar de Sacrificios: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The Maya site at the junction of the Pasion and Chixoy Rivers in Peten, Guatemala, occupied from c 1000 BC (Middle Pre-Classic) until c 950-1000 AD (beginning of Postclassic). Early remains are of Xe pottery and formal architecture (thatch-and-pole) date to c 500 BC. The site flourished due to its position on water routes and eventually plazas, a ball court, and temple pyramid were built. There is evidence of intrusion of a group (probably Putun) around 800-850 AD and a second invasion c 910. After this, the site declined in power and was eventually abandoned.
alternate flaking: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The opposite face of each edge was steeply flaked and each face opposing the beveled edge was flatly flaked.
alternate retouch: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: Retouch that occurs on the dorsal side of one edge and the ventral side of the opposite edge of a flake.
Altheim: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A small site near Landshut, Bavaria (Germany) which has three concentric rings of ditches and palisades. It is also the name of the Late Neolithic-Copper Age culture of the upper Danube basin.
Altin-Depe: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Altin-depe
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large Chalcolithic and Bronze Age site in southern Turkmenistan which is similar to Namazga-Depe. The urban phase of the early 2nd millennium BC has a large artisans' quarter where there is evidence for specialized pottery production. The residential quarter has rich grave goods, including jewelry of precious and semi-precious stones and metals and imported materials. There is a complex of monumental structures which are similar to the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, with three main periods of construction. The settlement declined early in the 2nd millennium BC and was abandoned mid-millennium.
Alto Salaverry: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Preceramic site on the north coast of Peru with the first sunken circular structure, which eventually was used in other ceremonial sites of the Initial Period.
Altun Ha: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Classic Maya site in Belize, about 35 mi (56 km) north of Belize City which dates to the Middle Pre-Classic Period. It is known for caches of obsidian and jade. The land was poor for agriculture, but marine resources were exploited and the small center was quite wealthy. There is evidence of long-distance contact with Teotihuacan before it was abandoned, like other Maya ceremonial centers, c 900 AD.
Altyn-depe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age site dating from the late 6th till the late third millennium BC in southern Turkmenistan. City walls, a ceremonial center, elite residences, cemeteries, and burials have been found as well as a massive multi-stage platform and artifacts of Harappan materials.
Amapa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Mexico dating from 250-700 AD, occupied again from 900-1200. Metal artifacts were produced from 900, suggesting a connection with Mesoamerican cultures at the time.
Amara: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of two Nubian towns about 180 km south of Wadi Halfa, one east and one west of the Nile. Amara West was a walled colony founded by the Egyptians c 1295-1069 BC when much of Nubia was regarded as Egypt. Amara East has a temple dating to c 300 BC - 350 AD but few other remains.
Amarna period: CATEGORY: chronology
DEFINITION: A phase in the late 18th Dynasty, including the reigns of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Ay (1379-1352 BC), when important religious and artistic changes took place. The name is derived from the site of Akhenaten's capital at Tell el-Amarna.
Amarna, Tell el-: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Akhetaten; El-Amarna; Tall al-Amarna; el-Amarna
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the ruins and tombs of the city of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhetaton in Upper Egypt, 44 mi (71 km) north of modern Asyut and 280 km south of Cairo. Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) built the city in about 1348 BC as his capital and the center of his reformed religion and worship of Aten. The city consisted of a group of palaces, temples, and residential quarters (and rock-cut tombs) inhabited only about 25-30 years. It was abandoned less than four years after Akhenaten's death and the capital returned to Thebes. Tell el-Amarna's remains have preserved the record of this short, fascinating period of history during which a correspondence in cuneiform between the Egyptian pharaoh, kings of the Hittites and of the Mitanni, and governors of Egyptian possessions in western Asia took place. There is Mycenaean pottery, linking the site to the Aegean and statuary which differed from the traditional art of pharaonic Egypt. The art of this brief monotheistic period was realistic and unrestrained, in contrast with the stereotyped art styles of other periods in ancient Egypt. It is one of the best-preserved examples of an Egyptian settlement of the New Kingdom.
Ambrona: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Lower Palaeolithic site in Soria, central Spain, first discovered before World War II. Ambrona probably dates 300,000-400,000 years ago, from the end of the Mindel glacial period. Its occupants hunted elephants, deer, and bovines though the horse was the most common animal in the area. There are stone hand axes, scrapers, and cleavers of the Acheulian type and similar to some African sites were made from chalcedony, quartzite, quartz, and limestone. Points were fashioned from young elephant tusks. Pieces of charcoal show that fire was used.
Amekni: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Algeria dating to c 7th millennium BC. Pottery similar to wavy-line ware of Early Khartoum. There is not evidence of food production or of fishing in this early settlement.
Amlash: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in northwest Iran, southwest of the Caspian Sea, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Rich burials in tombs have produced gold and silver vessels, pottery figurines, animal-shaped pottery rhytons (ritual vessels) -- material similar to that at Marlik Tepe.
Ampajango: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Catamarca Province, northwest Argentina, with a river terrace containing a complex of bifacial tools dating c 10,000 BC.
Amratian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Naqadah I
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Egyptian predynastic culture, centered in Upper Egypt and named for the site El Amrah (or al-'Amirah; c 4500-4000 BC) near Abydos. Numerous sites, dating to c 3600 BC, have been excavated. They reveal an animal husbandry and agricultural lifeway similar to the preceding Badarian culture. There are large cemeteries, like that at Naqada, which imply that the settlements were permanent and large. Many of the dead were buried crouched with rich grave goods. Flint was quarried for the variety of finely worked daggers, points, and tools. Copper came into use for beads, harpoons, and pins. There was trading with Ethiopia, the Red Sea, and Syria based on the finds. Several pottery wares, in a range of shapes, were made: black-topped red ware from the Badarian period onward and white cross-lined (red ware painted in white) added.
Amri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Indus Valley in Pakistan, probably dating to the early 3rd millennium. It was the first site to be recognized as belonging to the Early Harappan Period when excavated by Majumdar in 1929. Its name has been given to a style of hand- and wheel-made painted pottery found in its Chalcolithic levels and on tells over much of Sind and up into the hills of Baluchistan. These tall globular beakers of fine buff ware are painted with geometric designs in black between red horizontal bands. Chert and some copper were used for tools and the architecture was in mud-brick. Fractional burial was the practice for the dead. Periods I and II represent the pre-Harappan settlement of agricultural farmers, who kept cattle, sheep, goat and donkey, but also hunted (or herded) gazelle. In the later part of Period II Harappan ceramics appear alongside Amri wares; Period III represents a full mature Harappan occupation. The culture was gradually succeeded by that of the Indus civilization. The uppermost levels contained Jhukar and Jhangar material.
Amsadong: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Korean Chulmun culture site near Seoul with pithouses, net weights and sinkers, querns, dating to 4490-1510 BC. It is the type-site of the Classic Chulmun pottery.
Amudian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Amud
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A culture and industry close to the Sea of Galilee near Tiberias, Israel. There are several important caves, including Emireh, the type site of the Emiran, and Zuttiyeh, the type site of the Amudian. These demonstrate the early occurrence of Upper Palaeolithic blades and burins even earlier than the Mousterian and its flake tools. The Amud cave is Mousterian or Emiran and in 1961 the skeletal remains were found of two adults and two children estimated to have lived about 50,000-60,000 years ago (remains held in the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem). They consist of a skeleton of an adult male about 25 years old, a fragment of an adult jaw, and skull fragments of infants. The skeleton has an exceptionally large brain (1800 cc). The remains suggest that they are part of a group known as Near Eastern Neanderthal man. This group represents a mixture of West Asian features similar to those of fossils found in 1957 in Iraq that were estimated to date from about 46,000 years ago and those of the Upper Paleolithic people who lived in southwestern France and the Middle East from about 10,000 to 35,000 years ago. These findings provide more evidence that Neanderthal man was a highly varied species who lived in much of the Northern Hemisphere, except the New World. Amudian material has been recognized at the cave of et-Tabun (Mount Carmel) and at sites like Jabrud, Adlun, and the Abri Zumoffen in the Levant. It has been suggested that the Amudian may have been ancestral to subsequent Upper Palaeolithic industries of the Middle East, hence the name 'pre-Aurignacian' which has sometimes been given to industries of Amudian type.
Amuq: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A swampy plain in northern Syria east of Antioch (Antakya) at the foot of the Amanus mountains and beside the Orontes River at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea. Its important sites Tayanat (Neolithic-Chalcolithic), Atchana (Copper Age to Hittite), and Antioch (Hellenistic and Roman). The plain is rich in tell settlements of the prehistoric and later periods. The basic prehistoric sequence for the area has phases designated by letters, as 'Amuq A represents the Early Neolithic.
Amuq: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A swampy plain in northern Syria east of Antioch (Antakya) at the foot of the Amanus mountains and beside the Orontes River at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea. Its important sites Tayanat (Neolithic-Chalcolithic), Atchana (Copper Age to Hittite), and Antioch (Hellenistic and Roman). The plain is rich in tell settlements of the prehistoric and later periods. The basic prehistoric sequence for the area has phases designated by letters, as 'Amuq A represents the Early Neolithic.
Amur Neolithic: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A number of Neolithic cultures recognized near the Amur River in eastern Siberia. They are mainly defined by the presence of pottery. In the Middle Amur region, the earliest phase is known as the Novopetrovka blade culture. Later is the Gromatukha culture, with unifacially flaked adzes, bifacially flaked arrowheads, and laurel-leaf knives and spearheads. Settlements on Osinovoe Lake, which are characterized by large pit houses, date to around the 3rd millennium BC. Millet was cultivated, representing the first food production in the area, and there was fishing. A fourth Neolithic culture in the area, dating to the mid-2nd millennium BC was a combination of farming and fishing by people who moved there from the Lower Amur area. The Neolithic of the Lower Amur is known from sites such as Kondon, Suchu Island, and Voznesenovka. Fishing provided the economic basis for the establishment of unusually large sedentary settlements of pit houses -- a situation paralleling the examples from the Northwest coast of North America. In the 1st millennium BC, iron was introduced and fortified villages constructed. In Middle Amur, millet farming became the lifeway.
Amvrosievka: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site in southern Ukraine with and large number of bison bones and artifacts of microblades and laterally-grooved bone points. The site is dated to 15,250 bp.
Anaeho'omalu: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on Hawaii dating to the 10th century AD as a fishing camp and later a settlement. It has one of the largest petroglyph fields in the Hawaiian Islands with over 9000 figures.
Anaeho'omalu: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on Hawaii dating to the 10th century AD as a fishing camp and later a settlement. It has one of the largest petroglyph fields in the Hawaiian Islands with over 9000 figures.
anaerobic: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Without air; the opposite of aerobic. This term is used to describe environmental conditions where oxygen is not present and where decay of organic material is partially or completely stopped. Anaerobic conditions are usually waterlogged but may also occur when a layer or clay, plant, or animal remains is sealed. The remains survive much better than under normal conditions because there is insufficient oxygen for bacterial or fungal growth. The organic materials reach a state of equilibrium beyond which they do not decay.
analogy: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: An anthropological practice using reasoning based on the assumption that if two things are similar in some respects, then they must be similar in other respects. Ethnographic information from recent cultures is then used to make informed hypotheses about archaeological cultures and to compare societies and culture traits of recorded societies with those of prehistoric sites. Analogy is the basis of most archaeological interpretation (see general and specific analogy).
analytical type: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The method of defining arbitrary groupings of artifacts. Analytical types consist of groups of attributes that define artifacts for comparing sites in space and time. They do not necessarily coincide with actual tool types used by prehistoric people.
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.
Anatolia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A mountainous region of present-day Turkey, bounded by the Pontine mountains and Zagros mountains. There are a number of early sites dating c 7000 BC as the rainfall was adequate for dry farming. The area was also important for sources of obsidian, which was exploited from the Upper Palaeolithic onwards and was extensively traded in the Neolithic. The area was an important center in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic, with sites like Catal Huyuk and Can Hasan. It was less important in the Bronze Age but later became the homeland of the Hittite empire in the 2nd millennium BC.
Anau: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in the Kara Kum oasis of southern Turkestan, first excavated in the 1880s and again in 1904. Its name has been given to a Chalcolithic culture of the 5th and 4th millennium BC that parallels that of the sites of Sialk and Hissar (Hassuna) in Iran, especially with connections in pottery styles.. Characteristic finds include fine pottery with geometric painted decoration and simple copper tools. There was a farming subsistence economy and metal ores were probably imported from the south.
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.
Andersson, Johan Gunnar (1874-1960): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Swedish geologist who laid the foundation for the study of prehistoric China. In 1921, at a cave near Peking, he demonstrated the presence of prehistoric material in that country. He is remembered for his work on the Yang Shao Neolithic culture (dating between 5000-3000 BC) on the middle Yellow River and the Pan Shan cemeteries further west in Kansu. He also carried out the first excavations (1921-1926) at the Palaeolithic cave site at Choukoutien (Zhoukoudian). Andersson started Sweden's Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities.
Aneityum: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A volcanic island of Melanesia with more than 800 agricultural sites from 1000 years ago.
Ang-ang-hsi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A group of Neolithic sites in Manchuria which demonstrate strong connections with the Novopetrovka and Gromatukha cultures of the Middle Amur in eastern Siberia, especially in stone tool technology. Animal, fish and mollusk remains occur on the sites.
Angkor: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Archaeological site in northwestern Cambodia which was the capital of the Khmer empire in Kampuchia and founded in c 9 AD (c 802). The name, from Sanskrit 'nagara', means royal city the capital". As the capital of the Khmer empire form the 9th-15th centuries its most imposing monuments are Angkor Wat a temple complex built in the 12th century by King Suryavarman II (reigned 1113-c. 1150 AD) and Angkor Thom a temple complex built about 1200 by King Jayavarman VII (1181-c 1215 AD). These monuments were lost in jungle and rediscovered in the last century. In total there are more than 250 monuments built almost exclusively in sandstone. The Thais conquered Angkor in 1431 and it was abandoned."
Angkor Borei: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the capital of the kingdom of Funan towards the end of the 6th century. The rich archaeological site is located south of Phnom Penh, near the Vietnam border, in Cambodia. It appears as Na-fu-na in Chinese writings and is identified with Naravaranagara. There are many stone statuary.
Angkor Thom: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a temple complex in the northwestern plain of Angkor built about 1200 by King Jayavarman VII (1181-c 1215 AD). In the Khmer language, the name means the big capital" and it served intermittently as the capital of the Khmer empire from the 11th century onward. It is surrounded with walls and moats of 4-by-4 km and the temple-mountain Bayon is in the center."
Angles-sur-l'Anglin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in west-central France of a rock shelter with Upper Palaeolithic art, the Rocaux Sourciers (Angles). The back wall has fine bas-relief carvings and there is a frieze of female figures dominating the shelter. Several animal carvings are found. Occupation dates to middle and late Magdalenian and the art is dated to c 11,000 BC.
Aniba: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Miam
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a cemetery and settlement in Lower Nubia, founded as an Egyptian fortress in the Middle Kingdom (2055-1650 BC). It is near the gold-mining region of Nubia.
Anlo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Holland with a long sequence of occupation, starting with the Funnel Beaker culture. It was followed by a cattle enclosure during the Late Neolithic (protruding foot beaker) people, then a cemetery of five flat graves with foot beakers and bell beakers with cord ornament. The next phase was a settlement with late varieties of Beaker pottery, followed by a Middle Bronze Age plow soil, and a Late Bronze Age urnfield.
ansa lunata: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A handle or handles on a vessel or vase going in two opposite directions or in two diverging projects. The term describes Terramara pottery of the Apennine culture and vessels of central Europe of the Middle to Late Bronze Age.
Anse au Meadow, L': CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland that is the only known Viking settlement in the New World. The Norse explorers were the first Europeans to reach what is now Canadian explorers, c 1000 AD, as is recorded in the Icelandic sagas and recently confirmed by the archaeological discovery of the site at L' Anse-aux-Meadows. Excavations revealed traces of turf-walled houses similar to those at Viking sites in Greenland and Iceland. Also found was a spindle whorl, iron nails, and a smithy with pieces of bog-iron and several pounds of slag -- all of Norse origin. Radiocarbon dates range from AD 700-1080 with a concentration around 1000, which is the period when, according to the sagas, Norsemen led by Leif Eriksson sailed west from Greenland and explored the coast of America, which they named Vinland.
Antequera: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Roman Anticaria, Moorish Madinah Antakira
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a town in Málaga province, in the autonomous community (region) of Andalusia, southern Spain, northwest of Málaga, at the foot of the Sierra del Torcal which is famous for its three Neolithic (Copper Age) chambered tombs (dolmens): the Cuevas de Menga, de Viera, and El Romeral. They are partially cut into the hillside, but each is constructed differently. The Cueva de Menga has a huge orthostat chamber c 5 m wide, 3 m high, and 1.45 m long, roofed by five large capstones supported by three central pillars and drystone walls. Human figures in scenes are carved on its walls. The Cueva de Romeral has a magnificent corbel vault nearly 5 m high, dry-stone tholos, and a passage over 30 m long. The Cuevas de Viera has a long orthostat-lined passage with porthole slabs and a small square chamber. A cemetery of rock-cut tombs of the Bronze Age imitating the tholos form is nearby.
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.
Antiquities Act of 1906: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A U.S. law protecting all historic and prehistoric sites on Federal lands and prohibiting excavation or destruction of such antiquities unless a permit (Antiquities Permit) is obtained from the Secretary of the department which has the jurisdiction over those lands. It also authorizes the President to declare areas of public lands as National Monuments and to reserve or accept private lands for that purpose.
antler: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: The lowest, forward branch of the horn of a deer -- bonelike material which is grown and shed annually. Antlers indicate the sex of the species, for example only male red deer, fallow deer, and elk (moose) have antlers. They may also indicate whether a site is occupied seasonally as they are naturally shed in the winter, except for female reindeer who shed the antlers in spring. Antlers were a valuable material for making many tools.
Antonine Wall: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A defensive fortification on the frontier of the Roman Empire in Scotland, built by the governor Lollius Urbicus for the emperor Antoninus Pius c 142-145 AD. It spans the distance between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, running for 36.5 miles (58.5 km) with 19 forts on its line and others forward and to the rear. The wall, mainly turf-built, was 14-16 ft (4.5 m) wide and probably 10 ft (3 m) high with a ditch of 40 ft (12 m) wide and 12 ft (4 m) deep in front of the wall and a military road behind it. The forts are 2 miles (3 km) apart. The wall was probably a last attempt to secure the Scottish Lowlands by the Romans and it provided defense beyond Hadrian's Wall, which was around 100 miles (160 km) south. The work was carried out by men from the legions stationed in Britain, and was probably completed section by section by different work groups who marked their handiwork with decorative plaques. Crop marks reveal some evidence for the temporary camps for the builders. The wall was abandoned temporarily in c 155-158 AD during the northern revolt and permanently before the end of the century when the garrison withdrew to Hadrian's Wall. Rough Castle is a well-preserved fort site and other traces of the wall remain.
Anuradhapura: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Sinhalese kingdom centered at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka and its capital from the time of the introduction of Buddhism in the 3rd century BC until the site was abandoned in the 10th century AD after many incursions by the Tamils of South India. The South Indians gained control of the kingdom several times -- in the 2nd, 5th, and again in the late 10th century AD, after which Anuradhapura was finally abandoned as the Sinhalese capital in favor of Polonnaruva. There was also internal warring by clans trying to establish separate dynastic lines. The most important Anuradhapuran dynasties were the Vijayan (3rd century BC-1st century AD) and the Lamakanna (1st-4th century AD and 7th-10th century). Buddhist monuments include palaces, monasteries, and stupas, many of which have been conserved and restored. During its 1,000 years of existence, the kingdom of Anuradhapura developed a high degree of culture. Among the most famous are the Thuparama stupa, the Ruvanveli dagaba (an enormous stupa), and the Lohapassada monastery. The kingdom also developed a remarkably complex system of irrigation, considered by many scholars to be its major achievement.
Anyang: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: An-yang, Yinxu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in the Honan province of China that was the last capital of the Shang (Yin) Dynasty, occupied in the 12th and 11th centuries BC. It was founded c 14 BC and overthrown by the Chou in 1027 BC and was the seat of 12 kings who ruled for 273 years, a time referred to as the historical Anyang period. Anyang is one of the most extensively excavated sites, beginning in 1928. The buildings had rammed earth floors and many sacrifices of men and animals and chariot burials were found under them. Deep storage pits held oracle bones with inscriptions in an archaic form of Chinese, but the most important finds came from the cemeteries, which included royal tombs. At least as early as the Song dynasty (960--1279), Anyang was known as a source of bronze ritual vessels. Very large cruciform shaft tombs were found near the village of Houjiazhuang. There were eight large tombs in the western part of the Xibeigang cemetery and five more in the east. Excavation has shown that rows of satellite burials in the eastern section were not laid down at the time of the royal entombments but instead were later sacrifices offered to the tombs' occupants; these burials correspond with the oracle texts descriptions of victims sacrificed, sometimes by the hundreds, to the reigning king's ancestors. The only intact royal tomb yet discovered is that of Fu Hao, which is not in the Xibeigang cemetery but across the river at Xiatoun. Later excavations have established that Anyang was heir to the flourishing civilization of the Erligang Phase.
Aosta: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Augusta Praetoria
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Roman colony and stronghold of the Salassi that lies at the foot of the Italian Alps. The Romans subdued a Celtic tribe in 25 BC and Augustus founded a Roman town (Augusta Praetoria) there in 24 BC. The remains of the rectangular circuit of walls, gates, forum, theater, amphitheater, and an Augustan triumphal arch are on the site.
Apennine culture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Apennine Bronze Age
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The Bronze Age culture of the Italian peninsula, lasting from c 2000-800 BC. The culture's pottery was distinctively dark and highly burnished, and decorated with incised and punctuated bands filled with white inlay. The handles, often single, were elaborate and included crested, horned, and tongue types. The people seemed to depend on pastoral economy and stock breeding in the mountains which give the culture its name. Trade and a more mixed economy has evidence at some sites -- Ariano, Liparis, Luni, Narce, and Taranto -- and the culture had some influence from the Balkans. Some inhumation cemeteries are known, but burials are rare. Bronze tools, though in use, are rarely found until very late in the period.
Apple Creek: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Archaic site in Illinois where people engaged in intensive collecting of wild vegetable foods after 3000 BC, esp. hickory nuts and acorns.
applied archaeology: CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The use of archaeological methods and techniques to obtain information about contemporary society and to conserve sites from being destroyed.
Aq Kupruk: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter (Aq Kupruk II) and open site (Aq Kupruk III) on the Balkh River in northern Afghanistan. It is one of the richest Palaeolithic sites in that area. Aq Kupruk II had a single late Palaeolithic deposit with a blade industry (including microliths) with a radiocarbon date of c 14,600 BC. Aq Kupruk III had two deposits, one with artifacts similar to II and a lower one without microlithics. The presence of domesticated sheep and goats at Aq Kupruk has been dated to 8000 BC and that of cattle to about 6000 BC. Sickle blades, peaked stone hoes, chisels, hand mills, and pounders suggest the collection and preparation of wild grains, if not cultivation.
Aqab, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric site of Syria with an unbroken sequence from the Early Halaf to the 'Ubaid period.
Aqar Quf: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The settlement site of the Kassite city of Dur-Kurigalzu in northern Babylonia (Iraq) dating c 1400-1150 BC. There was a ziggurat and temple complex.
Aqrab, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site on the Diyala River east of Baghdad, Iraq. There was a flourishing city in the 3rd millennium BC and excavations revealed a temple of the Early Dynastic period. The temple was dedicated to Shara, patron god of the city of Umma.
Aqrab, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site on the Diyala River east of Baghdad, Iraq. There was a flourishing city in the 3rd millennium BC and excavations revealed a temple of the Early Dynastic period. The temple was dedicated to Shara, patron god of the city of Umma.
Aquatic Civilization: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Aqualithic
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: This term has been used to describe a widespread series of cultures in the high lake and river areas of the southern Sahara and Sahal between the 8th and 3rd millennia BC (also 10,000-8000 BP). There are barbed bone harpoon heads and pottery with parallel wavy lines that reveal some similarities between the regions. First investigated at Early Khartoum, sites of this type are now known as far to the southeast as the Lake Turkana basin in Kenya. To the west, related material is found as far as Kourounkorokale in Mali. The greatest significance of the aquatic civilization" lies in the settled lifestyle of its people for this led up to the subsequent adoption of food production. Artifacts include bone harpoons."
Arad: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in southern Israel west of the Dead Sea named for Biblical Arad and having ruins visible at Tel 'Arad, just a few miles northeast. First excavated in 1962, 'Arad has three separate phases of occupation. The first settlement was in the Chalcolithic period with a walled city at the beginning of the 3d millennium BC, which was destroyed by c 2700 BC. Imported Egyptian pottery was found in that phase. A resettlement occurred in the Early Bronze I and II phases and a succession of walled citadels and a temple have been found as well as ostraca (inscribed pottery). The last period of occupation was confined to a citadel on the highest part of the earlier town and it was occupied from the 12th-11th centuries BC. It served as a southern frontier post of the kingdom of Judah. There was a sanctuary for the worship of Yahweh. There were also citadels on this site in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The Book of Numbers (21:1-3) tells how the Canaanite king of 'Arad fought the Israelites during the exodus from Egypt, but his cities were utterly destroyed" by Israel's armies. The city's name appears on the Temple of Amon al-Karnak Egypt in the inscription of Pharaoh Sheshonk I first ruler of the 22nd Dynasty (reigned c 945-924 BC)."
Arambourg, Camille (1885-1969): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Palaeontologist and professor who carried out excavations and surveys in Africa, especially in Maghreb, Ain Hanech, Ternifine, Omo-Turkana, and Omo Valley. The Omo remains, a group of hominid fossils, the oldest of which are about 3 million years old, were found by Arambourg, Yves Coppens, F. Clark Howell, and others on an expedition in Ethiopia's Omo River region in 1967-1974. These fossil finds represented a breakthrough in the study of early hominids as they were the first found to go back to such an early date. The earliest previously uncovered fossils dated to 1,750,000 years. He also found a Homo erectus (Alanthropus) at an Acheulian site at Ternifine.
Aramis: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Early hominid site of Ethiopia dating to c. 4.5 million years ago.
Araouane: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A basin site of former lakes in western Mali dating to 8000-9000 years ago.
Arapi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic-Early Bronze Age settlement site / mound in Thessaly, Greece. It was first occupied in the Aceramic Neolithic and is characterized by polychrome decorated pottery.
Aratta: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site name mentioned in a Sumerian epic that was supposedly involved in long-distance trade with Mesopotamia during the 3rd millennium BC.
Arauqinoid or Araquinoid: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arauqin
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A ceramic series created to compare the cultures of the Venezuela / Antilles area which flourished in the Middle Orinoco River region from c 500-1500 AD. Soft-textured gray vessels tempered with spicules of freshwater sponge and geometric incised designs on the interior beveled rims of bowls were characteristic. Collared jars with appliquéd human faces and coffee-bean eyes were also common and pieces of griddles have been found at most sites. The series replaces the Saladoid and Barrancoid in some areas.
arbitrary excavation: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Excavation by predetermined levels of a given thickness; used on sites or areas of sites without visible layering of the soil.
arbitrary sample unit: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: antonym: nonarbitrary sample unit
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A subdivision of data within a defined area of excavation, such as a sample unit that is defined by a site grid, which has no specific cultural relevance.
archaeoastronomy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: astroarchaeology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The study of the relationship between prehistoric knowledge of astronomical events through calendars, observatory sites, and astronomical images in art and past cultural behavior. The field includes the study of mathematical correlations between archaeological features and the movements of celestial bodies. Some sites (Stonehenge, New Grange) show a definite interest in simple solar observations. Ancient astronomical knowledge can be inferred through the study of the alignments and other aspects of these archaeological sites.
archaeobotany: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: palaeoethnobotany, paleoethnobotany, paleoentomology, palaeoentomology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The study of botanical remains at archaeological sites. The field examines the natural surroundings of flora as well as the human-controlled flora on sites. The terms palaeoethnobotany, palaeoentomology, and palaeobotany are sometimes used interchangeably in the literature of archaeology.
archaeography: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: archeography
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The systematic description or archaeological objects over time made by nonprofessionals (travelers, traders, diplomats, etc.) who are often in situations where they view sites and antiquities in a much better state of preservation than that in which they are today. These accounts, either in writings or drawings, are valued in archaeological studies.
archaeological conservancy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: archeological conservancy
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Any private, nonprofit organization working to save archaeological sites from destruction. This is done primarily by purchasing threatened sites and protecting the sites until they can be turned over to responsible agencies such as national parks.
archaeological reconnaissance: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: archeological reconnaissance
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A systematic method of attempting to locate, identify, and record the distribution of archaeological sites on the ground by looking at areas' contrasts in geography and environment.
archaeoparasitology: CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The study of parasites in archaeological contexts.
archaeozoology: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: zooarchaeology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The study of animal remains, especially bones, from archaeological contexts, including the identification and analysis of faunal species as an aid to reconstructing human diets, determining the impact of animals on past economies, and in understanding the environment at the time of deposition. Animal remains are collected, cleaned, sorted, identified, and measured for their study and interpretation. The study of bones involves calculations of minimum numbers of individuals belonging to each species found; their size, age, sex, stature, dentition, and whether the bones have any marks from implements implying butchering and eating. Archaeologists attempt to answer questions such as how many species of domesticated animals there were, how far wild animals were exploited, how many very young animals there were to determine kill patterns and climate changes, in what way bones were butchered, what the sex ratios there were in determining breeding strategies, and if there were any animals of unusual size. By analyzing remains from different parts of a site it may be possible to understand some of the internal organization of the settlement, while a comparison between sites within a region may show areas of specialization.
Archanes: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arkhanes
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Minoan site on Crete with a 16th century BC palatial structure, cemetery complex, and artifacts of gold, ivory, and marble.
Arctic Small Tool tradition: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: The first coastal dwellers of the true Arctic regions who appeared before 2200 BC and who had a hunting tradition and a distinctive set of stone tools, weapon tips, and adzes of small size (hence the name). Their sites stretched from the Bering Sea across the north Canadian coast as far east as northernmost Greenland, though there is no evidence of sleds or boats. Within a century or two of 2000 BC, they also expanded southward in Alaska to the Alaska Peninsula and south along the northeastern American coast to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Denbigh Flint Complex (or Arctic Denbigh culture, named for the type site Cape Denbigh, Alaska) is the characteristic tool assemblage. It included small chipped stone artifacts derived from Neolithic eastern Siberia -- such as blades, microblades, burins, scrapers, large bifacial projectile points. There was no pottery and the economics were balanced between products of the land (caribou, lake and river fish, musk ox) and sea mammals. Approximate dates range from 4000-1000 BC and this tradition is thought to be associated with ancestral Eskimo. In Canada and Greenland, the Small Tool people gradually developed into the Dorset culture. In Alaska, the Small Tool people disappeared and were replaced by 400 BC by people of the Norton culture who used Siberian-type pottery.
area excavation: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: extensive excavation, open excavation, open-area excavation
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A method of excavation in which the full horizontal extent of a site is cleared and large areas are open while preserving a stratigraphic record in the balks between large squares. A gradual vertical probe may then take place. This method is often used to uncover houses and prehistoric settlement patterns. Area excavation involves the opening up of large horizontal areas for excavation, used especially where single period deposits lie close to the surface. It is the excavation of as large an area as possible without the intervention of balks and a grid system. This technique allows the recognition of much slighter traces of ancient structures than other methods. On multi-period sites, however, it calls for much more meticulous recording since the stratigraphy is revealed one layer at a time.
Arenal: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A Preceramic site and culture dating between 6500-6000 BC on the central coast of Peru, south of Lima. The culture was characterized by large diamond-shaped chipped points which indicated a hunting lifeway.
Arene Candide: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site at Finale Ligure on the Italian Riviera whose excavation revealed a stratigraphy extending from the Upper Palaeolithic through Epi-Palaeolithic, to Early, Middle, and Late Neolithic, as well as poor levels from the Bronze and Iron Ages up to the Roman period. There were some rich burials in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th levels. The 1940s excavations by Bernabò Brea helped him make important interpretations of the Neolithic period in the Mediterranean.
Argar, El: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: An Early Bronze Age settlement near Almeria in southeast Spain that is the type site of a culture of the 2nd millennium BC. The settlement was fortified and contained rectangular stone houses, though little has been recovered as they are not as well-preserved as the Argaric sites Ifre and El Oficio. The settlement also contained 950 interments, with the earliest in cists and later switching to jar burial. Grave goods in the cist burial phase included daggers, halberds, and wristguards. In the jar burials, there was also faience, and swords and axes of copper or bronze and gold and silver ornaments. Silver was more common in this area than anywhere else in Europe at the time. The pottery of this culture was plain burnished in simple shapes. The Agaric culture, which developed trading with eastern Mediterranean centers, reached its peak between 1700-1000 BC and spread through the central, southern, and Levantine regions and to the Balearic Islands. The area may owe its origin to immigration from western Greece.
Argissa: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Neolithic site in Thessaly, northern Greece, which has given much information on the early phases of the Greek Aceramic Neolithic period. In the Argissa Magula near Larissa, there have been early prepottery Neolithic finds of probably the 6th millennium BC. Timber-framed huts consisted of shallow mud-walled pits that were likely roofed with branches. Obsidian was already being traded and flint tools were made. The earliest known domesticated cattle date from about 6000 BC at Argissa (and Nea Nikomedeia) in Greece, in association with cultivated einkorn, emmer wheat, and barley, millet, lentils. Sheep, goats, and pigs were also cultivate and kept. This site (along with Knossos) is also responsible for the earliest evidence of agriculture, soon after 7000 BC. The site was occupied throughout the Neolithic and well into the Bronze Age.
Argos: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Argos (meaning agricultural plain)"
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: City in the northeastern Peloponnese of Greece, just north of the head of the Gulf of Argolis. The name was applied to several districts of ancient Greece but it is most often used to describe the easternmost part of the Peloponnesian peninsula and the city of Argos was its capital. Homer described it as the fertile plain inhabited by Agamemnon, Diomedes, and other heroes in the Iliad". The site was probably occupied since the Neolithic / Early Bronze Age and was very prominent in Mycenaean times (c 1300-1200 BC). Argos was probably the base of Dorian operations in the Peloponnese c 1100-1000 BC and from then on the dominant city-state of Argolis until it allied itself with Sparta after the Peloponnesian War in 420 BC. In 392 it broke with Sparta to unite with Corinth in the Corinthian War. Argos later joined the Achaean League (229) and Argos became its center after the Roman conquest and destruction of Corinth (146). The city flourished in Byzantine times and did not decline until around 1204 AD. One tyrant Pheidon is thought to have introduced primitive coinage and a weights and measures system. Archaeological excavations began in 1854 on the Argive Heraeum and Argos was famed for its connection with the goddess Hera. There was a natural sanctuary there long before the Dorians came c 1100-1000 BC. The shrine is reported to be of extreme antiquity. The statue of Hera for a new 5th-century temple was done by the celebrated sculptor Polycleitus whose work was said to rival that of Pheidias the sculptor of the Parthenon. There is material evidence of Neolithic Early and Middle Bronze Age a Mycenaean cemetery with chamber tombs Geometric and Archaic features and ruins of the classical and Roman city. The Larisa hill was evidently the Mycenaean acropolis and citadel holding a classical temple. There was also a Roman theater and small odeum. The site is mostly covered by the modern city."
Arica: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Tarapacá region on the north coast of Chile at the foot of El Morro. Preceramic shell mounds were excavated at Quiani, Pichalo, and Taltal which were dated between 1200-1450 AD. The city of Arica was founded as San Marcos de Arica in 1570 on the site of a pre-Columbian settlement, it belonged to Peru until 1879, when it was captured by Chile. Arica is near the Peru border and is the northernmost Chilean seaport.
Arikamedu: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the Madras coast of southern India near Pondicherry excavated by Mortimer Wheeler. It was an important trading post of the Romans after the mid-first century BC, though black-and-red ware found there began well before the period of Roman contact. A town with warehouses in an industrial quarter was built. Black-and-red Iron Age wares associated with Arretine ware of the 1st century AD, Mediterranean amphorae, and imperial Roman coins were found by Wheeler. Other excavations have found Roman pottery, beads, intaglios, lamps, and glass which indicate continuous occupation. Graffiti on pottery indicates the presence of Indian traders.
Ariusd: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Erosd
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic settlement (c 3000 BC) found on a site in Romania's Upper Olt Valley. The regional painted ware is a variant of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture. At the site, there are at least seven occupation horizons, some with gold jewelry and copper artifacts. The seventh level was a late Copper Age assemblage of the Schneckenberg type.
Arka: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic cave site in northeast Hungary dating to 18,600-17,000 bp. The artifacts include endscrapers, burins, and retouched blades of the Gravettian and there are some faunal remains.
Arkin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Stone Age site near Wadi Halfa in the Nubian Nile Valley. There are factory sites for roughouts of foliate points of the Later Mousterian tradition which are probably contemporary with factories at nearby Khor Musa. The artifacts show affinities with Saharan Aterian artifacts.
Arlit: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Tenerian site to the west of the Air Mountains of Niger, dated to c 5500 BP.
Armant: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Iunu-Montu, Hermonthis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Upper Egypt on the west bank of the Nile, southwest of Luxor, that was the original capitol of the Theban nome until the 11th Dynasty. Excavations have revealed extensive cemeteries and areas of Predynastic settlement. Thutmose's annals on the walls of the temple of Karnak describing 20 years of military activity in Asia are supplemented by stelae from Armant.
Arpachiyah: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Arpachiyah, Tell
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in Iraq near Mosul on the Tigris inhabited in the Halaf and Ubaid periods (mid-6th to early 4th millennium BC). The Halaf settlements yielded a long pottery sequence and circular buildings with some rectangular antechambers on cobbled streets. The function of these buildings is unknown. The site appears to have been a specialized artisan village making the fine polychrome pottery. In addition to the painted polychrome wares, other finds include steatite pendants and small stone discs with incised designs, probably early stamp seals. There was pottery of northern Ubaid style and fine Halaf pottery, and stone amulets and figurines.
Arras: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Aras
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The site of an Iron Age cemetery in Yorkshire, England, with at least 90 burials, some barrows covering the burials and some with chariots. There are several related sites (Danes' Graves) in east Yorkshire with similar grave goods which define the Arras culture along with the burials. Material dates the Arras culture to c 5-1 BC and the Arras people seem to have been intruders from the continent. Their artifacts suggest links with the migrations of the Parisii from eastern France and the Rhineland. The chariot gear includes a distinctive three-link horse bit.
Arretium: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Arezzo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Etruscan and Roman city, and capital of Arezzo province, in Tuscany southeast of Florence. Known in antiquity for the fine workmanship of its city walls and its red-clay Arretine pottery, the site flourished as a commune in the Middle Ages before falling to Florence in 1384 and later becoming part of the grand duchy of Tuscany. Remains of the city walls, closely constructed and of stone and lightly fired brick, have been found. The quantity of bronze and the mass production of the pottery indicates a considerable degree of industrialization. Arretine ware, a glossy red tableware both plain and relief-decorated, originated at Arretium in the 1st century BC.
arrowhead: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: projectile point, arrow-head
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A small object of bone, metal, or stone that has been formed as the pointed end of an arrow for penetration and is often found at sites of prehistoric peoples. The earliest known are Solutrean points of the Upper Palaeolithic. Arrowheads are often the only evidence of archery since the arrow shaft and bow rarely survive. The term projectile point is generally preferable because it avoids an inference regarding the method of hafting and propulsion. Most often, arrowheads were placed in a slot in the shaft, tied, then fixed with resin.
Arslan Tash: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the ancient city of Hadâtu, a provincial capital of the Assyrian kings of northern Syria, first excavated by the French in 1928. There was a central tell surrounded by a circular wall and a palace and temple containing fine ivories, dating from the beginning of the 8th century BC.
Arslantepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Chalcolithic-to-Roman site in eastern Anatolia with monuments of the Syro-Hittites (early 1st millennium BC) and earlier settlements of the Late Uruk period (mid-4th millennium BC).
Artenac: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A cave site in Charente, France, which is the type-site of the Artenacien culture. Artifacts include copper beads, flint daggers, and fine pottery with beaked handles. There are simple megalithic tombs and burial caves, dating to c 3000-2000 BC.
Arthur (c 5th century AD?): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: The legendary British king who is described in medieval romances as the leader of a knightly fellowship called the Round Table. It is said that he rallied the British against the Anglo-Saxon invaders and that behind the legend there may be a sub-Roman warleader who filled such a role. Though his name does not survive in contemporary records, he may have led the British at the battle or siege of Mount Badon which stopped the Saxon advance c 490 AD for some fifty years hence. All the historical references to him in the chronicles of Bede, Gildas, Nenius, Geoffrey of Monmouth and others were written between 100 and 600 years after the event, so they are considered unreliable for archaeologists. The search probably started with the monks of Glastonbury, who in 1191 claimed to have found the burial of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere inscribed with the words, Here lies Arthur in the Isle of Avalon buried". Various locations as far apart as Cornwall and Scotland are claimed as the site of Mount Badon; the refortified Iron Age hillfort of Badbury Rings in Dorset seems the most credible possibility. The site of Arthur's court at Camelot may be the historical site of South Cadbury. Excavations carried out at South Cadbury revealed an important fortified settlement of the 5th and 6th centuries which could have been the center from which British resistance to the Saxons was organized."
Asana: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A seasonal Preceramic site in the Andes of southern Peru dating to 7800 BC -- with possibly the earliest domestic structures in the Andean region. A ceremonial complex dating to 2660 BC with altars, clay-lined fire basins, and surface hearths has also been found.
ash: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Volcanic material of less than 4 mm in diameter that falls quickly and can bury sites, preserving the stratigraphy, people, and artifacts. Ash is also the soft, solid remains of burned organic material as from cremation.
ash mound: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A site type found in India where the remains of Neolithic cattle pens of the 3rd millennium BC created by regular fires burning palisades enclosing cattle.
ash tuff: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: tuffa
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Rock formed from solidified volcanic ash, which often is re-formed after the eruption and deposited elsewhere by water runoff. It is an excellent stratigraphic indicator and, because of the presence of very small crystals, is used to obtain potassium-argon dates.
Ashdod: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palestinian site of a Canaanite city of the Late Bronze Age that was probably destroyed by the Sea Peoples. It was one of the cities of the Philistine Pentapolis.
Ashkelon: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palestinian site of the Late Bronze Age with artifacts of Egyptian and Cypriote origin. There was an Iron Age Philistine city and material from the Roman period.
Asia: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Preceramic site on the south-central coast of Peru with a series of mounds and burials with evidence of trephination.
Asiab, Tepe: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A semi-permanent settlement in the Zagros region of western Iran, dated between 7100-6750 BC, belonging to the Karim Shahir culture. There is evidence of tool manufacture, settlement patterns, and subsistence methods, including the crude beginnings of the domestication of both plants and animals in this site as well as nearby sites at Guran, Ganj-e Dareh, and Ali Kosh. Burials have been excavated, covered in red ochre.
Asikli Hüyük: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Aceramic Neolithic site in central Anatolia, near an obsidian source (Ciftlik) and probably involved in extracting and trading the material. Radiocarbon dates of unstratified contexts at the site are c 7000-6650 BC. It may have been contemporary with Hacilar.
Aspero: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Preceramic site on the north-central coast of Peru, dating to 4360-3950 BP. It is one of the largest Preceramic settlements known in the Andes and it had a complex social hierarchy. Six platform mounds and other structures include rooms with artifacts, textiles, plant material, clay figurines, and feathers.
assemblage: CATEGORY: artifact; term
DEFINITION: A group of objects of different or similar types found in close association with each other and thus considered to be the product of one people from one period of time. Where the assemblage is frequently repeated and covers a reasonably full range of human activity, it is described as a culture; where it is repeated but limited in content, e.g. flint tools only (a set of objects in one medium), it is called an industry. When a group of industries are found together in a single archaeological context, it is called an assemblage. Such a group characterizes a certain culture, era, site, or phase and it is the sum of all subassemblages. Assemblage examples are artifacts from a site or feature.
association: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: associated
CATEGORY: term; technique
DEFINITION: The co-occurrence of two or more objects sharing the same general location and stratigraphic level and that are thought to have been deposited at approximately the same time (being in or on the same matrix). Objects are said to be in association with each other when they are found together in a context which suggests simultaneous deposition. Associations between objects are the basis for relative dating or chronology and the concept of cross-dating as well as in interpretation -- cultural connections, original function, etc. Pottery and flint tools associated in a closed context would be grounds for linking them into an assemblage, possibly making the full material culture of a group available. The association of undated objects with artifacts of known date allows the one to be dated by the other. When two or more objects are found together and it can be proved that they were deposited together, they are said to be in genuine or closed association. Examples of closed associations are those within a single interment grave, the material within a destruction level, or a hoard. An open association is one in which this can only be assumed, not proved. Artifacts may be found next to each other and still not be associated; one of the artifacts may be intrusive.
Assur: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ashur
CATEGORY: deity; site
DEFINITION: A solar deity which was the chief god of the city of Assur and the kingdom of Assyria. With the latter's conquests, Assur assumed leadership of the Assyrian pantheon and supremacy over the other gods of Mesopotamia. The deity was conceived in anthropomorphic terms. The image of the deity was fed and clothed and was responsible for fertility and security, and represented as a winged sun-disc. It is also the name of the ancient religious capital of the Assyrian empire in northern Mesopotamia, on the bank of the River Tigris at modern Qalaat-Shergat, which was a great trading center and the burial place of the kings even after the government moved to Nineveh. First recorded in the 3rd millennium BC as a frontier post of the empire of Akkad, it then became an independent city-state and finally the capital of Assyria. After Assyria's collapse in 614 BC it failed to survive but was briefly revived under the Parthians. Areas of the palaces, temples, walls, and town have been cleared, and a sondage pit was cut beneath the Temple of Ishtar (pre-Sargonid) to reveal the 3rd and early 2nd millennium levels (the first use of this technique in Mesopotamian excavation). Sumerian statues were found -- among the earliest evidence of Sumerian contact outside the southern plain. For over 2000 years successive kings built and rebuilt the fortifications, temple, and palace complexes: inscriptions associated with these monuments have helped in the construction of the chronology of the site. Three large ziggurats dominated the city with the largest being 60 m square (completed by Shamsi Adad I c 1800 bc). It was originally dedicated to Enlil, but later to Assur; the dedication of the other temples also changed through time. Representations on cylinder seals suggest that many buildings might have had parapets and towers. Assurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) moved the capital to Calah and by 614 BC the city of Assur had fallen to the Median (Medes) army.
Astarte: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Asherah, Ashtoreth, Ashtart
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: The goddess of the ancient Near East that was the chief deity of many important sites and the fertility goddess of the Phoenicians and the Canaanites. She is sometimes equated with Egyptian Isis, Babylonian Ishtar, Carthaginian Tanit, and Greek Aphrodite, Cybele, and Hera. She originated in Syria as a war goddess, probably introduced into Egypt in the 18th Dynasty (1550-1295 BC). Astarte was usually portrayed as a naked woman on horseback wearing a headdress or bull horns.
Aswad, Tell: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Aceramic Neolithic site in Syria's Damascus basin, occupied c 7800-6600 BC. There is evidence of early farming (plant cultivation including barley, cereals, emmer wheat, lentils, peas, pulses).
Aswan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Swenet, (Greek) Syene, Assuan, Assouan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city in Upper Egypt, on the first cataract of the Nile, where the Aswan High Dam has been erected. The ancient site included important antiquities such as the temples (Abusimbel's), the rock-cut tombs of Qubbet el-Hawa, and the island of Elephantine (modern Jazirat Aswan) have been rescued from flooding by international groups who also explored those structures which could not be saved. There are also local quarries on the eastern bank on the Nile which supplied granite for many ancient Egyptian monuments and which are still in operation. Aswan was the southern frontier of pharaonic Egypt. Aswan later served as a frontier garrison post for the Romans, Turks, and British.
Aszód: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic site (4th millennium BC) in the Zagyva Valley, 30 km east of Budapest, Hungary. There are remains of a settlement with 40 rectangular houses containing rich assemblages and a cemetery with rows of graves. There are varying degrees of wealth in the grave goods. Aszód is a rare example of a site east of the Danube River with a western Hungarian material culture.
Ataki I: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site on the Dnestr River in the Ukraine with four occupation levels dating as far back as 15-16,000 BP.
Atlitian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic assemblage named for the type site, Atlit, in the Mount Carmel region of Israel. There are several layers with Aurignacian-like assemblages and this culture followed the Antelian (formerly Middle Aurignacian). It was among the assemblages that preceded various Mesolithic developments in the Middle East.
Atranjikhera: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, with a series of occupation levels. The earliest level contained ochre-colored pottery. It was followed by a level with black and red ware, followed by a series of layers with painted gray ware, which also produced iron tools and weapons. The radiocarbon dates so far recorded are unreliable.
attribute pointer: CATEGORY: database design
DEFINITION: In relational databases, a field in a many" file that makes a relation with the key attribute of a "one" file. "Site number" could be an attribute pointer in an artifact cataloguing file and refer to the key attribute "Site number" in another file "Sites" with a unique record for each site."
auger: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: augering (n)
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A tool used to probe into the ground and extract a small sample of a deposit without performing actual excavation. Its applications in archaeology are as a means of sampling and understanding the geological environment of a site and also for extracting peat for pollen analysis. There are various types of augers and they can be manual- or power-driven. Simple augers bring up samples on the thread of a drill bit. More elaborate ones open a chamber to collect a core after the drill has bored to an appropriate depth. Augering is generally restricted to the earliest stages of archaeological reconnaissance to determine the depth and characteristics of deposits.
Augst: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Augusta Raurica, Roman Augusta Rauricorum
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a Roman colony and frontier post founded in 44 BC in Switzerland, which flourished under Hadrian until the time of an attack by the Alamanni in 260 AD. There is no evidence of occupation before 15 BC. The site has one of the most complete Roman city layouts north of the Alps with a theater, forum, curia, basilica, theater complex, baths, and city walls. The Romans enlarged the old Celtic settlement, improved water supplies, and constructed the arenas and theaters. Villas were built, providing the bases for agricultural exploitation and for spreading of Roman influence into the surrounding countryside.
Aulnat: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Iron Age settlement site in Puy-de-Dome, France, dating to the 3rd century BC, with evidence of gold, silver, bronze, coral, glass, bone, and textiles. It was abandoned soon after the Roman conquest.
Aurignacian: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Aurignac (adj)
CATEGORY: culture; chronology
DEFINITION: A series of Upper Palaeolithic cultures in Europe that existed from about 35,000 to 20,000 years (dates also given as 38,000-22,000 years) ago. They were characterized by their use of stone (flint) and bone tools, refinement of those tools, and the development of sculpture and cave painting. The culture is named for the type site Aurignac, in southern France, where such artifacts were discovered. In France it is stratified between the Châtelperronian and the Gravettian (and before the Solutrean and the Magdalenian), but industries of Aurignacian type are also found eastwards to the Balkans, Palestine, Iran, and Afghanistan. At Abri Pataud there is a radiocarbon date of pre-31,000 BC for the Aurignacian, but there are possibly earlier occurrences in central and southeast Europe (Istállóskö in Hungary, Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria). There is still considerable dispute about the extent to which the Aurignacian is contemporary with the cultures of the Perigordian group in southwest France. The sites are often in deep, sheltered valleys. Split-based bone points, carinates (steep-end scrapers), and Aurignac blades (with heavy marginal retouch) are typical of Aurignacian. Aurignacian is also important as the most distinctive and abundantly represented of the early Upper Palaeolithic groups.
Avaris: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The capital of the Hyksos in Egypt, possibly the site of Tell Ed-Daba.
Avdeevo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site near Kursk in Russia with a single occupation between 11,950-22,700 BP. There were pits and hearths and artifacts of shouldered points and animal and Venus figurines. Woolly mammoth dominates the large faunal assemblage.
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.
Aveline's Hole: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site in Somerset, England, with a Creswellian Epipalaeolithic industry and a Magdalenian-style harpoon.
Awdaghast: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tegdaoust
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a trading center in southern Mauritania at the southern end of the main caravan route across the Sahara to Ghana. In the closing centuries of the 1st millennium AD, it is probably that much gold was exported northwards along this route.
ax factory: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: axe factory
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: An often isolated outcrop of high-quality rock in Europe during the Neolithic period. These sources were exploited for the production of polished stone axes and this became an important industry of the time. The tools were roughly flaked at the factory sites and traded, either as blanks or as finished axes. There were many ax factories in Britain's highlands, northern Ireland, and northwest France. Microscopic analysis is used to identify the rocks by their distinctive crystalline structure, which has enabled the trading networks to be reconstructed.
Ayacucho complex: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A valley in southern Peru, north of the city of Ayacucho, with a series of caves -- notably Pikimachay (Flea) Cave and Jayamachay (Pepper) Cave -- which were the site of a complex of unifacial chipped tools (basalt and chert core tools, choppers, unifacial projectile points) and bone artifacts (horse, camel, giant sloth) dating between 15,000-11,000 BC. A human presence has been suggested in the Ayacucho Basin at that time, which would correspond with the first wave" of immigrants to the New World. Succeeding levels contain burins blades fishtail points and manos and metates. Gourds squash cotton lucuma and seed plants such as quinoa and amaranth were cultivated in the Ayacucho Basin before 3000 BC; corn and beans within the next millennium. There were also ground stone implements for milling seeds. It has been claimed that llamas and guinea pigs were domesticated within the complex. "
Ayampitin: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Cordoba, northwestern Argentina, which has evidence of a transition from Big Game Hunting to a more specialized hunting and gathering economy. The assemblage contains crude, large bifacial willow-leaf projectile points, lithic hunting tools, and tool-making debris in association with manos and milling stones, dating between 8,000-12,000 years ago.
Ayia Irini: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the island of Kea in the Aegean, occupied in the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC). There was a fortified town with links to Minoan Crete. There are very large female terra-cotta figures in the temple.
Ayios Epiktitos-Vrysi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic site in northern Cyprus of the late 5th millennium BC with a perimeter wall and ditch protecting semi-subterranean houses.
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.
Azelik: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of sites in Niger which have yielded evidence of metalworking at a very early date, possibly to late 2nd millennium for copper smelting. There may have been a brief Copper Age" (as at Akjoujt) before the adoption of iron which was rare in sub-Saharan Africa."
Azmak, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Asmaska Moghila
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell site in southern Bulgaria of the Neolithic and Copper Age. Several settlement horizons, building levels of early Neolithic Karanovo I culture, building levels of Karanovo V and VI cultures, and building phases of Early Bronze Age Karanovo VII culture have been unearthed. The layouts of the villages may yield architectural detail for the whole sequence.
Azykh Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic site in Azerbajdzhan with a unique pebble-tool industry and some faunal remains. There are upper layers with large bifaces and sidescrapers of the Acheulian, associated with Middle Pleistocene fauna. A Middle Palaeolithic / Late Pleistocene assemblage contains a Merck's rhinoceros and cave bear remains overlies Lower Palaeolithic industry remains.
B ware: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A range of ceramic amphorae originating at a range of source areas in the east Mediterranean. They date from the 1st to the early 7th century AD, although in Britain they date mainly to the later part of their currency. Divided into four subgroups, Bi-Biv. Bi are characteristic of sub-Roman sites in western Britain.
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.
Bükk: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A rugged mountain range in northern Hungary which gave its name to a Middle Neolithic pottery culture of the late 5th millennium BC. There are a number of cave sites with evidence of seasonal occupation and use of rocks for tools. There are hoards of axes and flint blades as well as painted and incised pottery. Obsidian was also exchanged even though there are volcanic tuffs, lavas, and post-volcanic hot springs.
Baalbek: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ba'labakk (Arabic), Heliopolis (Greek)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Important town and agricultural center in Lebanon and the site of the magnificent ruins of a Roman town. First knowledge of Baalbek was the time of the Greek conquest of Syria (332 BC). After the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC), the region fell to the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, under which the town was called Heliopolis, probably after its Egyptian namesake. It achieved importance in late Hellenistic and Roman times, especially as a holy city. Among the ruins are the Temples of Jupiter and Bacchus. In 200 BC, it was taken by the Seleucids' Antiochus the Great and it was a Seleucid possession until the dynasty's fall in 64 BC, when it was again under Roman control. Baalbek has been an Arab city since 637 AD.
Babadag: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A tell site and culture of the Late Bronze Age, located in Rumania. Several occupation levels have been identified, all of which are associated with rich assemblages of bones, bronze tools carbonized cereals, iron tools, and pottery.
Babadan A: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic site in Japan dating between 50,000-70,000 bp. The lithic culture includes choppers.
Babylon: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bab-ilu (Babylonian), Bab-ilim (Old Babylonian), Bavel or Babel (Hebrew), Atlal Babil (Arabic)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the most famous cities of antiquity, the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BC and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. It was located about 80 km south of Baghdad, Iraq on the Euphrates River. Babylon was occupied from the 3rd millennium BC, but it first reached prominence under King Hammurabi (reigned 1792-1750 BC), who made it the capital of his empire. (Hammurabi is best known for his code of laws.) Babylon was destroyed by the Hittites c 1595 BC and ruled by the Kassites until c 1157 BC. The city had frequent wars with Elam and Assyria during several short-lived dynasties until the 11th and last dynasty (626-539 BC), when the city was at its highest development and largest size. This last dynasty -- that of Nebuchadnezzar -- was instrumental in destroying Assyria and it conquered lands from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean before being overthrown by Cyrus in 539 BC. It continued in existence through the Achaemenid period, though with much reduced importance, until its abandonment in 641 AD after the Muslim conquest. The city itself covered around 200 hectares and had a population of about 100,000. Excavations beginning at the turn of the 20th century revealed the city's plan and scanty remains of the ziggurat, the original Tower of Babel. The high water table, which has risen in the last few millennia, allowed those excavators (R. Koldewey from 1899-1917) access to only buildings of the Neo-Babylonian period. The ruins, including temples (some for Marduk, the city's patron deity), fortifications, palaces, and the substructure of the Hanging Gardens, have not held up well over time, especially due to brick-robbing. The finest surviving monument is the Ishtar Gate and Procession Street. Important buildings excavated include Nebuchadnessar's palace, close to the Ishtar Gate, a huge building with many rooms arranged around five different courtyards. Another huge palace of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (605-562 BC) -- the 'Summer Palace' -- was constructed to the northwest of the Inner City and was enclosed by a triangular outer wall.
backfill: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: backfill (v.), back-filling (n.); backdirt
CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: Excavated earth put to one side at an archaeological site, which is later used to refill the excavation. The purpose of backfilling may be to prevent erosion or vandalizing.
backing: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A type of steep retouch probably used to dull the edge of a flake, making it suitable for hafting or handling with fingers; common on the edge opposite the cutting edge of a knife.
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.
Badari, el-: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Badari, al-
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An area of Upper Egypt between Matmar and Qau where a Predynastic culture existed. Numerous cemeteries (Mostagedda, Deir Tasa and the cemetery of el-Badari) and a settlement site at Hammamia have been found.
Badarian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Upper Egyptian, Predynastic culture of the later 5th millennium BC, named for the type site of el-Badari, on the east bank of the Nile River. It extended over much of Middle Egypt also. Excavations during the 1920s revealed settlements and cemeteries dating to about 4000 BC (Neolithic). Their fine pottery, black-topped brown ware (later red), was very thin-walled, well-baked, and often decorated with a burnished ripple. This effect was apparently produced by firing it inverted to prevent the air from circulating inside and over the upper rim, keeping these areas black whereas the base and lower wall externally were oxidized to brown or a good red color. Other remains include combs and spoons of ivory, slate palettes, female figurines; and copper, shell, and stone beads. Badarian materials have also been found at Jazirat Armant, al-Hammamiyah, Hierakonpolis (modern Kawm al-Ahmar), al-Matmar, and Tall al-Kawm al-Kabir. Flinders Petrie and other found large numbers of graves with artifacts in 1893-1894 and divided it into two phases: Naqada Culture I and Naqada Culture II.
Bader, Otto Nikolaevich (1903-1980): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A Russian archaeologist who worked on sites from the Palaeolithic to the Iron Age, including Kapovaya Cave and Sungir.
Baghdad: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The present-day capital of Iraq, a site 330 miles northwest of the Persian Gulf at the intersection of historic trade routes (Khorasn Road, part of the Silk Route) which was the foremost city of ancient Mesopotamia. Archaeological evidence shows that the site of Baghdad was occupied by various peoples long before the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia in 637 AD, and several ancient empires had capitals there. The true founding of the city dates from 762 when the Abbasids moved the Islamic capital there. It was the Islamic capital from the 8th-13th centuries. Abbassid Baghdad is buried beneath the modern city. There was a palace, a congregational mosque, ministries and barracks, surrounded by walls and a moat. In the late 8th and early 9th centuries, Baghdad was large and at its height economically; it was considered the richest city in the world. The caliph abandoned Baghdad in favor of Samarra from 836-892. The city was burnt by the Mongols in 1258, rebuilt and sacked by Timur in 1400. The glory of Baghdad is written about in The Thousand and One Nights"."
Bahía: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A phase in Ecuador's culture, dating c 500 BC - 500 AD that was discovered on La Plata Island (Manabi). Large pyramidal platform mounds, helmeted figurines, spouted jars, and incised pottery have been found and evidence of polychrome painting and metallurgy. Houses with saddle roofs (low, downward-curving roof ridges), pottery head/neck rests, figurines with one leg crossed over the other, Pan pipes graduated towards the center and ear plugs shaped like golf tees were unique to the culture -- but they have parallels in southeast Asia. It has been suggested that they were introduced into Ecuador by voyagers from across the Pacific. Particularly elaborate anthropomorphic vessels give information on dress and ornamentation (nose discs and tusk-like pendants). Bahia was a well-developed socio-political and religious unit. The La Plata Island site was probably a ceremonial center as there is little evidence of daily living. Unfortunately, many sites have already been lost to modern development.
Bahrain: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An island in the Persian Gulf that has been identified with the ancient land of Dilmun (Telmun) of about 2000 BC, a prosperous trading center linking Sumeria with the Indus Valley. Written records of the archipelago exist in Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman sources. Burial mounds in the north of Bahrain Island suggest a period of Sumerian influence in the 3rd millennium BC. There are densely packed fields of tumuli in Bahrain and at several places on the adjacent mainland. They are associated with densely packed complexes of cist burials. Excavation has shown the island to be an important link in the sea trade between that region and the Indus civilization. Two important sites in the north of the island belong to the 'Dilmun period': a walled town at Qala'at al-Bahrain and a complex temple building at Barbar. Among the finds of this period are circular steatite stamp 'Persian Gulf' seals, related to Indus Valley seals, but probably made locally.
Baikal Neolithic: CATEGORY: chronology; culture
DEFINITION: The Neolithic period of the Lake Baikal region in eastern Siberia. Stratified sites in the area show a long, gradual move from the Palaeolithic to Neolithic stage, starting in the 4th millennium BC. The Postglacial culture was not true" Neolithic in that it farmed but Neolithic in the sense of using pottery. It was actually a Mongoloid hunting-and-fishing culture (except in southern Siberia around the Aral Sea) with a microlithic flint industry with polished-stone blade tools together with antler bone and ivory artifacts; pointed- or round-based pottery and the bow and arrow. Points and scrapers made on flakes of Mousterian aspect and pebble tools showing a survival of the ancient chopper-chopping tool tradition of eastern Asia have also been found. There was a woodworking and quartzite industry and some cattle breeding. The first bronzes of the region are related to the Shang period of northern China and the earliest Ordos bronzes. The area covers the mountainous regions from Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean and the taiga (coniferous forest) and tundra of northern Siberia. A first stage is name for the site Isakovo and is known only from a small number of burials in cemeteries. The succeeding Serovo stage is also known mainly from burials with the addition of the compound bow backed with bone plates. The third phase named Kitoi has burials with red ochre and composite fish hooks possibly indicate more fishing. The succeeding Glazkovo phase of the 2nd millennium BC saw the beginnings of metal-using but generally showed continuity in artifact and burial types. Some remains of semi-subterranean dwellings with centrally located hearths occur together with female statuettes in bone."
Baile Herculane: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large cave site in Rumania where flint implements from the Paleolithic Period (about 2,500,000 years ago) and Neolithic objects were found. There is important Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Copper Age stratigraphy comprising three main occupation horizons: Upper Palaeolithic levels corresponding to the Würm II phase and defined by a quartzite industry with end scrapers; a late Mesolithic level with microlithic flints, crude quartzite tools, and Danube fish bones; and levels of Late Copper Age occupation.
Baker's Hole, Northfleet: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Lower Palaeolithic site in Kent, England. It was a factory producing Levallois flakes.
Bakun, Tall-e: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bakun, Tall-I
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric tell site near Persepolis in south-central Iran, occupied continuous from c 4200 to c 3000 BC. The site, the oldest yet discovered in that area of Iran, was first excavated in 1928. It consisted of 12 mud-brick buildings with 1-7 rooms each. Bakun was occupied by an agricultural community that made fine painted pottery related to Susa A wares. Vessels included conical bowls and goblets with a large variety of geometric patterns and animal motifs. Other finds include flint implements, stamp and button seals, vessels of calcite and many animal and human figurines. The pottery is especially important for the study of early Iranian art.
Balakot: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site on the coast west of Karachi, Pakistan, dating to the 4th millennium BC. The Balakotian ceramic was followed by Harappan levels. Resources were fish, cattle, sheep, and goats.
Balanovo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site in south-central Russia dating to the early 2nd millennium BC near several short-lived settlement sites confined largely to the main river valleys. The regional culture made Corded Ware. The cemeteries mainly used flat inhumation rites, including double burials and some rich graves with copper battle-axes. Corded beakers, stone battle-axes, and fired clay model wheels are characteristic finds.
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.
balk: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: baulk
CATEGORY: term; technique
DEFINITION: A strip (usu. 10-25 centimeters) of unexcavated earth left in place between excavated units, pits, or trenches for the purpose of revealing the stratigraphy of an excavation for as long as possible. The balk provides a constant reference to the original pre-excavation level of the site, and also carries all sections along or across the site. In an excavation carried out according to the grid method, 25% of the site may consist of balks. Balks may also serve to facilitate access to different areas of the excavation.
balk excavation method: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The excavation of an area of a site leaving vertical pillars or walls in place, thus allowing better correlation between excavations with predefined strata.
Balkh: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Vazirabad, Bactra
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village in northern Afghanistan that was formerly Bactra, the capital of ancient Bactria. A settlement existed at the site as early as 500 BC and it was associated with Zoroaster until captured by Alexander the Great in c 329 BC. It was then made the capital of the Greek satrapy of Bactria, but in succeeding centuries fell to various nomadic invaders, including the Turks and Kushans, until it was decisively taken by the Arabs in the 8th century. Balkh then became the capital of Khorasan. Under the Abbasids and Samanids, it was a capital and a center of learning and known as the Mother of Cities". Balkh was completely destroyed by the Mongols under Genghis Khan in 1220. It lay in ruins until its capture by Timur in the 15th century. The alleged discovery of the tomb of 'Ali the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law in neighboring Mazar-e Sharif (1480) once again reduced Balkh to insignificance. Balkh was incorporated into Afghanistan in 1850. Balkh was a caravan city on the Silk Route and a major outpost of Buddhism. Very little is known about the pre-Islamic city."
Ballana and Qustul: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Two Nubian necropolis sites on opposing sides of the Nile, 15 km south of Abu Simbel and now submerged under Lake Nassar. Ballana was the type site of a period which lasted from the decline of the Meroitic empire to the arrival of Christianity (c 350-700 AD). Some pictographic writing dating c 3400-3100 BC was discovered at Qustul on pottery, slate palettes, and stone. Qustul may have been one of the earliest places of state formation in the world when rulers of the A-Group culture adopted symbols of kingship similar to those of contemporary kings of Egypt's Naqadah II-III periods.
Balof Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter in New Ireland, Oceania, dating to c 5000 BC with a preceramic industry of obsidian and bone points. The site has one of the earliest dates for human settlement in Oceania east of New Guinea.
Bambandyanalo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A hill that forms the eastern boundary of K2 in Transvaal, South Africa, where a site dates to the 11th-12th centuries AD -- the southern African Iron Age.
Bambata Cave: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A large cave of southwestern Zimbabwe, where excavations have revealed a long sequence of occupation over the past 50,000 years. The site gives its name to a stone industry and pottery type, but they are widely separated periods. There are rock paintings on the cave walls and sheep bones, found in the same archaeological levels as pottery, have been dated to 150 BC. The Bambata industry, dated between the 50th-20th millennia BC, used prepared cores to produce (unretouched) flakes for scrapers and slender unifacial or bifacial lances or spear points. Its distribution extended north to Zambia and south to the Orange Free State and perhaps the Cape. Bambata pottery ware is known only from contexts of the 1st millennium ad in Zimbabwe. It is elaborately decorated with stamped designs.
Bampur: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southeastern Iran with a series of prehistoric mounds and a medieval fort. There is a pottery sequence from the mid-3rd millennium to c 1900 BC which exhibits links to pottery from Afghanistan and Umm an-Nar Island on the Persian Gulf.
Ban Chiang: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Ban Chiang Hian
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site in northeast Thailand with burial deposits from 3600 BC-1600 AD and which was occupied from c 4500 BC. Rice was grown and bronze cast according to the earliest records. Iron and rice paddy field cultivation began in the 2nd millennium. The basal burials are associated with incised and cord-marked pottery, copper and bronze artifacts. Levels dated to the late 2nd and 1st millennia BC have produced a variety of curvilinear painted red-on-buff pottery, together with iron, and bones of water buffalo. However, there is disagreement over the dating of Ban Chiang,, especially for the bronze, iron, and painted pottery.
Ban Don Ta Phet: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A burial site near U Thong, Thailand dating to c 400-200 BC with etched stone and beads from India and other evidence of long-range trade by sea and land routes. Local wares were iron tools and cast-bronze bowls.
Ban Kao: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A burial site in western Thailand which spanned 2500-1600 BC. There is elaborately shaped unpainted pottery with a range of bone, shell, and stone artifacts.
Ban Nadi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site near Ban Chiang, Thailand, occupied from c 1500 BC-250 AD. It was the location of tin-bronze production after 500 BC, with axes, projectile points, and jewelry. Iron was smelted and forged for bangles, hoes, knives, and spearheads fro c 100 BC to 200 AD. The bronze wares were bowls, bracelets, and lead-bronze bells.
Ban Tha Kae: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric site in central Thailand near copper sources with a long sequence from Neolithic through Iron ages, paralleling Khorat sites.
Banas: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A Chalcolithic culture of Rajasthan, Indian, of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Archaeological evidence indicates that early humans lived along the banks of the Banas River (and its tributaries) about 100,000 years ago. The sites at Ahar, Gilund, and Kalibangan reveal Harappan (Indus) and post-Harappan culture (3rd-2nd millennium BC) with black-and-red ware, often with white painted designs, and other related red wares. Copper and bronze were very common and agriculture was attested. The Ahar occupation lasted c 2200-1500 BC. Pottery fragments at Kalibangan are carbon-dated to 2700 BC.
Banawali: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in northern Indiana with occupation between 2500-1500 BC. The earliest settlement had pottery similar to Early Harappan. A second phase was urban with residential blocks on regular streets and Mature Harappan-type pottery. The third phase had pottery comparable to Late Harappan wares (Bara ware, Late Siswal ware, ochre-colored pottery).
Banpo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of an early Yangshao Neolithic village, now a museum at Xi'an, China, in the basin of the confluence of the Yellow River (Huang Ho), the Fen Ho, and Kuei Shui. Radiocarbon dates range from c 4800-4300 BC. The settlement was about 50,000 sq. meters and included a cemetery and pottery kilns outside a ditch that surrounded the residences. Dogs, cattle, sheep, chicken and pigs were domesticated and millet, rice, kaoling, and possibly soybeans grown. The horse and silkworm may also have been raised. Unpainted pottery was cord-marked or stamped, and fine ceremonial" pottery vessels were painted in black or red with some simple geometric patterns and drawings of fish turtles deer and faces. There were some elaborately worked objects in jade as well as everyday objects made from flint bone and groundstone. Sites with similar remains have been excavated at nearby Jiangzhai Baoji Beishouling and Hua Xian Yuanjunmiao. These sites all exhibit the first evidence of food production in China."
Banshan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pan-shan
CATEGORY: site; culture; artifact
DEFINITION: Site of a Neolithic cemetery in the Tao River valley of China, the type site of the Banshan (or Pan-shan) culture which belongs to the western or Gansu branch of the Yangshao Neolithic. Banshan is best known for its painted pottery first found in a grave in 1923. Pan-shan ware is generally considered to date from between 2500-2000 BC, but it may extend as far back as 3000 BC or be as late as c 1500 BC (the Shang dynasty). Most are unglazed pottery urns or reddish brown with painted designs in black and brown, probably applied with a brush, consisting of geometric patterns or stylized figures of people, fish, or birds. The wares probably shaped on a slow or hand-turned wheel. The handles are set low on the body of the urns, and the lower part of the body is left undecorated -- much like Greek Proto-Geometric funerary ware. It was an important find because of the lack of Neolithic Chinese pottery up to 1923. A late stage of Banshan is named after the site of Machang.
Banshan pottery: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: site of a Neolithic cemetery in the Tao River valley of china, the type site of the Banshan (or Pan-shan) culture which belongs to the western or Gansu branch of the Yangshao Neolithic. Banshan is best known for its painted pottery first found in a grave in 1923. Pan-shan ware is generally considered to date from between 2500-2000 BC, but it may extend as far back as 3000 BC or be as late as c 1500 BC (the Shang dynasty). Most are unglazed pottery urns or reddish brown with painted designs in black and brown, probably applied with a brush, consisting of geometric patterns or stylized figures of people, fish, or birds. The wares probably shaped on a slow or hand-turned wheel. The handles are set low on the body of the urns, and the lower part of the body is left undecorated -- much like Greek Proto-geometric funerary ware. It was an important find because of the lack of Neolithic Chinese pottery up to 1923. A late stage of Banshan is named after the site of Machang.
Baradostian: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic flint industry following the Mousterian in northern Iraq and Iran, with the type site in a cave at Shanidar. It has radiocarbon dates c 30,000 BC and may have begun as early as 36,000 BC. The Baradostian was replaced by a local Upper Palaeolithic industry called the Zarzian (12,000-10,000 BC), probably caused by the extreme cold of the last phase of the Würm glaciation. The Zarzian marks the end of the Iranian Paleolithic sequence that preceded various Mesolithic developments in the Middle East.
barb: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: barbed (adj.)
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A subsidiary point facing opposite from the main point that makes an arrowhead or spear hard to remove
Barbar: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: A site and culture of northern Bahrain with a sequence of square temples built on an oval platform, dating from the late 3rd to mid-2nd millennium BC. The culture had distinctive pottery and seals and included sites at Qal'at al Bahrain, Bahrain Tumulus Fields, and others from Failaka to Qatar.
barbed and tanged arrowhead: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Triangular-shaped flint arrowheads of the later Neolithic and early Bronze Age in Europe. Distinctive in having a short rectangular tang on the base opposite the point, symmetrically set either side of which is a barb. The tang was used to secure the arrow tip to its shaft and usually projects slightly below the ends of the barbs.
Barkaer: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of the final Early Neolithic (phase C, TRB culture) in northeast Jutland, Denmark. There was a cobbled street, two timber buildings (80 m long and divided into 26 single rooms) which were at first thought to be houses but may have been burial structures. Offerings in the pits below the buildings included amber beads, copper objects, and pottery.
Barlovento: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site on the Gulf coast of Colombia, dating to 1500-1000 BC, with distinctive pottery with wide-lined incised curvilinear designs.
Barnenez: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic site in Brittany with radiocarbon dates in the 5th millennium BC. It consists of two long cairns, one with 11 passage graves placed side by side. They display a range of architectural techniques, using both large megalithic slabs and drystone walling; some chambers had corbelled vaults. Its dates may make it one of the earliest megalithic tombs in Europe.
Barrancoid subtradition: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Barrancas; Neo-Indian epoch
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A ceramic tradition possibly originating on the Caribbean coast of Colombia and established in the Orinoco delta by c 1000 BC. It spread down to the coast and (at turn of millennium) east and west to Guyana and Colombia. The pottery is skillfully modeled with biomorphic ornamentation and broad-lined incised patterns. The type site is Barrancas.
barrel urn: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of large middle Bronze Age pot found within the overall repertoire of the Deverel-Rimbury ceramic tradition of southern Britain in the period 1500 BC through to 1200 BC. Usually over 60cm high, barrel urns have a distinctive profile, wider in the middle than at the base or the rim, often with applied cordons that are decorated with finger-tip impressions. Found on domestic sites where they were presumably used as storage vessels and as containers for cremations often found as secondary burials in earlier round barrows.
barrow: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: burial mound; tumulus; burial cairn
CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A round or elongated mound of earth or stones used in early times to cover one or more burials; a grave mound. The mound is often surrounded by a ditch, and the burials may be contained within a cist, mortuary enclosure, mortuary house, or chamber tomb. There are two types, the long (elongated) and the round barrow (also known as tumuli). The former were built in the Late Stone Age, the latter in the Bronze Age, though burial under a round mound was occasionally practiced during the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking periods.. The long barrow was a tribal or family burial vault built of stone slabs, some weighing many tons, and covered with earth or stones. The large, round barrows were often communal. They are often found in prehistoric sites in Britain -- earthen (or unchambered) long barrows from the Early and Middle Neolithic (Windmill Hill Culture). Other long barrows were constructed over megalithic tombs of gallery grave types. Most of the British round barrows incorporate circles of stakes. Bowl barrows --- simple round mounds, often surrounded by a ditch --- were the most common form, used throughout the Bronze Age and sporadically also in the Iron Age. The Wessex Culture of the southern English Early Bronze Age was characterized by special types of barrows: bell, disk, saucer, and pond barrows. Bell barrows have relatively small mounds and a berm or gap between the mound and the ditch; disk barrows are very small mounds in the center of a circular open space, surrounded by a ditch; saucer barrows are low disk-like mounds occupying the entire space up to the ditch; while the oddly named pond barrows are not mounds at all, but circular dish-shaped enclosures surrounded by an external bank. The related term 'cairn' is used to describe a mound constructed exclusively of stone. Barrow burials occur also in Roman and post-Roman times: one of the most famous of all barrows in Britain is that covering the Anglo-Saxon boat burial at Sutton Hoo.
Barumini: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: su Nuraxi
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a nurage (towerlike monument) in southern Sardinia with a radiocarbon date for c 1800 BC which remained in occupation until the Roman period after being temporarily deserted in the 6th c BC. It began as a single tower c 17 meters high, and was later surrounded by a perimeter wall with a complex of smaller towers and a village of stone huts.
Basarabi culture: CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: An Iron Age culture of cemeteries and settlement sites over much of Romania with its type site on the Danube. It is a local version of the Hallstatt culture, dating to 975-850 BC.
Basta, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ancient Per-Bastet, Bubastis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a temple and town in the eastern Nile Delta, about 80 km northeast of Cairo which flourished from the 4th Dynasty to the end of the Roman period (c 2614 BC-AD 395). The main monument at the site is the red granite temple of the cat-goddess Bastet.
Bastet: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bastis, Bast, Ubasti
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: The ancient Lower Egyptian goddess worshipped in the form of a lioness, and later a cat. Bastet's form was often changed after the domestication of the cat around 1500 BC. Her principal cult center was Bubastis in the Nile River delta but she also had an important cult at Memphis. In the Late and Ptolemaic periods large cemeteries of mummified cats were created at both sites, and thousands of bronze statuettes of the goddess were put there as votive offerings. Her cult was carried to Italy by the Romans, and traces have been found in Rome, Ostia, Nemi, and Pompeii.
Bat Cave: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave in southern New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns National Park, notable for its evidence of prehistoric plant cultivation. The site of Bat Cave has produced specimens of a type of primitive corn that is also known from the Flacco phase in Tamaulipas at 2000 BC but that is here in association with a Chiricahua assemblage from which Cochise materials (maize and squash) have been dated at about 1000 BC. Evidence of beans (dated to 1000-400 BC) was found in association with San Pedro materials. Early levels indicate the use of primitive pod corn (dated c 3500 BC), but a cultivated form of maize was in use by 2500 BC, the earliest date for cultigens in the American Southwest. During the summer a colony of several million bats inhabits the cave.
Batán Grande: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large architectural complexes of South America located in the Lambayeque valley of north coastal Peru. The site has more than 30 huge platform mounds with an estimated 750,000 burials -- most of them looted by treasure hunters who have taken immense quantities of gold, silver, copper, and bronze objects. Occupation at Batán Grande went from the Formative (Cupisnique) to the Inca period. The site was the capital of a powerful state between 850-1300 AD. With Batán Grande, Cerro de los Cementerios was a copper-processing area, linked to the Cerro Blanco mine by a prehistoric road. Excavations have revealed metal artifacts, smelting furnaces, grinding slabs, crushed slag, and pottery blowtubes.
Batalimo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Central African Republic with a large Neolithic tool assemblage of flakes, sidescrapers, flaked axes, and elaborately decorated pottery.
Bath: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: [Aquae Sulis]
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site of hot mineral springs (120 F [49 C]) which attracted the Romans after their invasion of Britain, who founded Bath as Aquae Sulis, dedicated to the deity Sul (Minerva). From the late 1st century AD onwards the springs became the center for a complex of lavish monumental buildings. These include the Temple of Sulis Minerva and an extensive collection of baths, the most notable being the vaulted Great Bath.
battle-ax: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: battleaxe, battle-axe
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A type of prehistoric stone weapon, designed as a weapon of war. It is always of the shaft-hole variety, and frequently has a hammer, knob, or point at the opposite end from the cutting edge. In stone, they are common throughout most of Europe in the Late Neolithic and Copper Age, and often associated with corded ware and beakers. (The term Battle-Ax culture is often used as a synonym for Corded Ware or Single Grave culture.) Further east, more elaborate ones of copper or gold were more ceremonial than functional. The Vikings made iron battle-axes and used them well into the Middle Ages. The pole-ax is distinguished from the battle-ax by a spike on the back of the ax.
Batungan: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Cave sites in the central Philippines dating to at least 900 BC and hold flaked stone tools and pottery, some decorated with stamped patterns. There is a possible connection with pottery of Taiwan, with Kalanay / Sulawesi, and with Lapita ware.
Baturong Caves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Rock shelter sites in north Borneo dating to c 17,000-12,000 BP with a stone industry characterized by long knives. It succeeded the Tinkayu industry and preceded the Madai Caves.
Beersheba: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Israel which was a frontier post in ancient Palestine. The earliest occupations were in 12th and 11th centuries BC, but the first town belonged to the period of the United Monarchy (10th century). The 8th century BC town wall with a great gateway flanked by double guard chambers and external towers has been excavated. There was also a 15-meter ring road inside the wall which divided the inner and outer towns. Beersheba may have been the administrative center of the region and there are indications of storerooms which may have contained the royal stores for the collection of taxes in kind (grain, wine, oil, etc.). The town was destroyed in the mid-7th century BC. Beersheba is first mentioned as the site where Abraham, founder of the Jewish people, made a covenant with the Philistine king Abimelech of Gerar (Genesis 21). Isaac and Jacob, the other patriarchs, also lived there (Genesis 26, 28, 46).
Begram: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bagram; Kapisa
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in eastern Afghanistan north of Kabul which has been identified as Kapisa, the capital of several Indo-Greek rulers of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC and the Kushan summer capital from the 1st century BC to 3rd century AD. It was important for its placement on the caravan route between India and the West. Excavations have yielded fragmentary ivory furniture, pre-Islamic footstools of Indian origin (both c 1st c AD), as well as painted glass from Alexandria; plaster matrices, bronzes, porphyries, and alabasters from Rome; carved ivories from India; and lacquers from China. The Persian Sasanians established control over parts of Afghanistan, including Begram, in AD 241.
Behbet el-Hagar: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Per-hebyt, Iseum
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town in the northern central Nile Delta which flourished in the 30th Dynasty (380-343 BC) and the Ptolemaic period (332-30 BC). The site is dominated by the remains of a large granite temple of Isis.
Beidha: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bayda', Al-, Beida
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in south-central Yemen near Petra that was first occupied in the Early Natufian and Aceramic Neolithic. It is situated on a high plateau and, until the unification of the two Yemen states in 1990, was part of North Yemen (San'a'), though it lay near the disputed frontier with South Yemen. At first it was a semi-permanent camp which lived off goat and ibex. Beidha was reoccupied c 7000 BC by a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A [PPNA} group, who lived in a planned community of roughly circular semi-subterranean houses. They domesticated goats and cultivated emmer, wheat, and barley. There was a succeeding PPNB phase in which the buildings changed to complexes of large rectangular rooms, each with small workshops attached and with plastered floors and walls. Burials without skulls were found and there was also a separate ritual area away from the village. Finds from the site include materials from great distances, including obsidian from Anatolia and cowries and mother-of-pearl from the Red Sea.
Beijing: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Pei-ching, Peking
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The modern capital of China. More than 2,000 years ago, a site just outside present-day Peking was already an important military and trading center for the northeastern frontier of China. The Shang civilization reached this area in the early part of their dynasty and a grave of c 14th century BC at Pinggu Liujiacun contained bronze ritual vessels and a bronze ax with a blade of forged meteoritic iron. There have been many early Zhou finds, notably at the cemetery site of Fangshan Liulihe. In 1267, during the Yüan (Mongol) dynasty (1206-1368), a new city built on the site (called Ta-tu) which became the administrative capital of China. During the reigns of the first two emperors of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Nanking was the capital, and the old Mongol capital was renamed Pei-p'ing (Northern Peace"); the third Ming emperor however restored it as the Imperial seat of the dynasty and gave it a new name Peking ("Northern Capital"). Peking has remained the capital of China except for a brief period (1928-49) when the Nationalist government again made Nanking the capital (then to Chungking during World War II)."
Beikthano: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Buddhist religious and settlement site in central Burma of the early-to-mid 1st millennium AD.
Bel'kachi I: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site on the Aldan River in central Siberia, occupied during the Neolithic (c 4th millennium BC). Finds include the earliest date for pottery in Siberia, for a hand-molded, sand-tempered ware decorated with net or mat impressions. There was a succeeding phase, often known as the Bel'kachinsk culture (3rd millennium BC), which had distinctive pottery style, decorated with impressions from a cord-wrapped paddle. In that area during the Late Neolithic (2nd millennium BC), check-stamped ware, made by beating with a grooved paddle, appeared. Changes in stone and bone tools occurred during the development of the Neolithic, but throughout the economic basis remained hunting and fishing.
bell: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The earliest bell founding (i.e., the casting of bells from molten metal) is associated with the Bronze Age. The ancient Chinese were superb founders, their craft reaching an apex during the Chou dynasty (c 1122-221 BC). Characteristic were elliptical temple bells with exquisite symbolic decorations cast onto their surfaces by the cire perdue, or lost wax, process. Bells had an important ceremonial role in ancient China during the Chou Dynasty. The earliest Chinese bells, of Shang Dynasty (c 1600-1123 BC), were mounted mouth upwards and struck. Later bells hung mouth downwards.
Bellows Beach: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A coastal occupation site on Oahu, Hawaii, which has produced some of the earliest occupation dates (600-1000 AD) of the island group. The assemblage is of Early Eastern Polynesian type: shell fishhooks, stone adzes, and bones of dog, pig, and rat.
Belverde: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Bronze Age site of the Apennine near Cetona in Tuscany, Italy. There are indications that it may have been a ritual site, with rocks carved to form tiers of seats and other shapes. Complete pottery vessels filled with acorns, beans, and carbonized grain were placed into fissures in the rocks, perhaps as offerings to a deity.
Belzoni, Giovanni (1778-1823): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Italian excavator of Egyptian sites, who is known as a picturesque and unscrupulous collector of Egyptian antiques as well as a pioneer in Egyptology. Belzoni sought antiquities both for himself and for the British Consul-General on behalf of the British Museum, whose collection he enhanced enormously. His discoveries were numerous, ranging from at Thebes, the colossal sculpture of the head of Ramses II (the Young Memnon"); in the nearby Valley of the Tombs of Kings the tomb of Seti I and the aragonite sarcophagus (for the Sir John Soane's Museum London). Though he managed to take an obelisk from the Nile island of Philae (Jazirat Filah) near Aswan it was taken from him at gunpoint by agents working for French interests. He explored Elephantine (Jazirat Aswan) and the temple of Edfu (Idfu) cleared the entrance to the great temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel was first to penetrate the pyramid of Khafre at Giza and identified the ruins of the city of Berenice on the Red Sea. His methods were unnecessarily destructive by modern archaeological standards. He died in western Africa as he began a journey to Timbuktu. An account of his adventures was published in the year of his death "Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids Temples Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia" (2 vol. 1820)."
benben stone: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A cult object made of stone, found at sites such as for the sun god Re at Heliopolis. The sacred stone symbolized the Primeval Mound and perhaps also the petrified semen of the deity. It served as the earliest prototype for the obelisk and possibly even the pyramid. It was probably constructed in the early Old Kingdom, c 2600 BC.
Benfica: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Angola with many shell middens, stone artifact assemblages, and Early Iron Age pottery dated to the 2nd century AD.
Beni Hassan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bani Hasan, Beni Hasan
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Kingdom archaeological site, on the eastern bank of the Nile, Egypt, about 150 miles south of Cairo. The site is known for its rock-cut tombs of the 11th- and 12th-dynasty (2125-1795 BC) officials of the 16th Upper Egyptian (Oryx) nome, or province. Some of the 39 tombs are painted with scenes of daily life and important biographical texts. The governors of the nome, whose capital was Menat Khufu, ancestral home of the 4th-dynasty pharaohs, administered the eastern desert. The tomb of one, Khnumhotep II, contains a scene showing Semitic Bedouin merchants in richly colored garments entering Egypt. A rock-cut shrine of Pakhet, known as Speos Artemidos, built by Queen Hatshepsut and Thutmose III of the 18th dynasty, lies one mile north, in an ancient quarry, with a smaller shrine of Alexander II nearby. There are some small tombs dating back to the 6th Dynasty (2345-2181 BC).
Benin City: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Edo
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Capital and largest city of Edo state, Nigeria, which rose to prominence in the 13th century. A series of massive city wall, over 100 km in length, was constructed. The Portuguese first visited in 1485 and it was burned down and ransacked for nearly 2,500 of its famous bronzes in 1897 when the British occupied the city. Benin City is known for the fine practice the ancient method of cire perdue (lost-wax") bronze castings mostly relief plaques and near life-size human heads produced over a long period. Traces of the old wall and moat remain."
Bennett, Wendell Clark (1905-1953): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American archaeologist who excavated many important sites in Peru from the 1920s-1950s. His studies of Peruvian ceramics produced many of the early sequences on the Peruvian coast and the central highlands, which was considered a major breakthrough in Andean archaeology.
Benty Grange helmet: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: An Anglo-Saxon ceremonial helmet found in 1848 at a burial site in Benty Grange. Unlike the Sutton Hoo helmet, which has similarities to Swedish helmets, the Benty Grange example was undoubtedly of native workmanship. It is an elaborate object combining the pagan boar symbol with Christian crosses on the nail heads.
Beowulf: CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: An heroic poem, considered the highest achievement of Old English literature and also the earliest European vernacular epic. Preserved in a single manuscript (Cotton Vitellius A XV) from c 1000 AD, it deals with events of the early 6th century and is believed to have been composed between 700 and 750. It did not appear in print until 1815. Beowulf is one of the earliest, longest and most complete examples of Anglo-Saxon verse. Although originally untitled, it was later named after the Scandinavian hero Beowulf. Its themes are essentially the conflict between good and evil and the nature of heroism; fantasy and reality are intertwined as the hero Beowulf fights Grendel and other semi-mythological monsters. There is no evidence of a historical Beowulf, but some characters, sites, and events in the poem can be historically verified. Perhaps Beowulf's greatest contribution to archaeology is the light the poem has shed on the funerary customs displayed in the Sutton Hoo ship burial. The opening passages describe how the dead King Scyld Scefing was borne out to sea in a ship; jewels were placed on his chest, armor and treasure heaped around his body, and a standard was hoisted overhead.
Berdyzh: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site in Belarus with radiocarbon dates of 23,430-15,000 bp. On the Sozh River, there are faunal remains of woolly mammoth and mammoth-bone houses.
Berekhat Ram: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Acheulian site in Golan Heights, Israel, which yielded waste flakes, a few bifaces, Levallois flakes, and sidescrapers.
Berelekh: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The most northern Palaeolithic site in the world, at 71? N in northeastern Siberia, containing a bed of 8000+ mammal bones, including woolly mammoth, of c 14,000-12,000 years ago. There is also an Upper Palaeolithic level dating to 13,400-10,600 bp and assigned to the Dyuktai culture.
Berenice: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Three different sites: a town on the coast of Cyrenaica, Libya which was the site of Euhesperides; a port on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea founded by Ptolemy II, especially important in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD; and Pella, Jordan, which was once known as Berenice.
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.
Bernal Garcia, Ignacio (1910-1992): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A Mexican archaeologist known for his work at Monte Albán, Dainzü, Teotihuacán, and other Oaxacan sites.
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.
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.
Beth-Shan: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bet She'an, Baysan (Arabic), Beisan (modern); Scythopolis
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A very large tell of northeastern Israel, site of one of the oldest inhabited cities of ancient Palestine. Overlooking the town to the north is Tel Bet She'an (Arabic Tall al-Husn), one of the most important stratified mounds in Palestine. It was excavated in 1921-1933 by the University of Pennsylvania, which discovered the lowest strata date from the late Chalcolithic period in the country (c 4000-3000 BC) through Bronze Age and Iron Age levels and upward to Byzantine times (c AD 500). Buildings, including temples and administrative buildings, span the Egyptian period -- the earliest from the time of Thutmose III (ruled 1504-1450 BC), and the latest dating to Rameses III (1198-66 BC). Important stelae (stone monuments) show the conquests of Pharaoh Seti I (1318-1304 BC) and of the worship of the goddess Astarte. During the Hellenistic period, the city was called Scythopolis; it was taken by the Romans in 64 BC and given the status of an imperial free city by Pompey. In 1960 a finely preserved Roman amphitheater, with a seating capacity for about 5,000, was excavated. The city was an important center of the Decapolis (a league of 10 Hellenistic cities) and under Byzantine rule was the capital of the northern province of Palaestina Secunda. All these periods were also represented in the surrounding cemeteries. It declined after the Arab conquest (636 AD).
Beth-Shemesh: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palestinian site of the Middle Bronze Age that was possibly a Hyksos fortified settlement and later a Late Bronze Age and Philistine town.
Bethel: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Luz, Baytin (modern)
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the ancient city of Palestine, just north of Jerusalem, occupied before 2000 BC to the 6th century BC. Bethel was important in Old Testament times and was associated with Abraham and Jacob. Excavations have been carried out by the American School of Oriental Research and the Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary. The most important levels were of the Late Bronze Age, a particularly well-built town of the Canaanites which was violently destroyed early in the 13th century BC, probably by the Israelites. After the division of Israel, Jeroboam I (10th century BC) made Bethel the chief sanctuary of the northern kingdom (Israel), and the city was later the center for the prophetic ministry of Amos. The city apparently escaped destruction by the Assyrians at the time of the fall of Samaria (721 BC), but was occupied by Josiah of Judah (reigned c. 640-c. 609 BC).
Betovo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Palaeolithic site near Bryansk, Russia with artifacts (denticulates) and faunal remains (snow lemming) that indicate a cold interval such as early in the last glacial.
Beycesultan: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell on the upper Meander River of southwestern Anatolia (western Turkey) which has yielded evidence from the Chalcolithic to Late Bronze Age and of a culture contemporary with the Hittite empire. It is thought to have been the capital of the 2nd-millennium BC state of Arzawa. From the Chalcolithic, there was a cache of sophisticated copper tools and a silver ring, the earliest known use of that metal. Buildings that were religious shrines have been uncovered, almost unknown in Anatolia at those times. Rectangular shrine chambers were arranged in pairs, with ritual installations recalling the Horns of Consecration and Tree, or Pillar, cults of Minoan Crete. A palace building at the same site, dating from the Middle Bronze Age (c 1750 BC), Beycesultan's most prosperous period, had reception rooms at first-floor level, also in the Minoan manner. In common with most other Bronze Age buildings in Anatolia, its walls were composed of a brick-filled timber framework on stone foundations. The private houses of this period at Beycesultan were all built on the megaron plan. The whole settlement and a lower terrace on the river was enclosed by a perimeter wall. The town was violently destroyed and though it was rebuilt, it remained relatively poor into the Late Bronze Age.
bi disk: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bi
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A flat jade disc with a small hole in the center, made in ancient China for ceremonial purposes, possibly symbolizing Heaven. Bi disks have also been described in ancient Chinese texts as a symbol of rank. Jade disks and disklike axes have been found in 4th- and 3rd-millennium BC graves at east-coast Neolithic sites such as Beiyinyangying. Polished stone disk segments are known still earlier at Banpo.
Bibracte: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Mont Beurvray
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Iron Age Gallic town and oppidum in central France. It was the capital of the Aedui tribe at the time of Caesar and the site where he defeated the Helvetii tribe, the climax of his first campaign in Gaul (58 BC). Augustus moved the inhabitants to his new town Augustodunum (Autun), about 30 km away, in 12 BC. Excavations in the 19th century revealed remains of both the Iron age settlement and the Roman period, including a large temple, houses, and metalworking workshops. Imported objects such as coins, amphorae, black and red glaze pottery dating to before the Roman conquest have been found, indicating that Bibracte was a major trading and production center in the late Iron Age.
biface bevel flaking: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: This flaking technique involved the removal of elongate, steep, pressure or percussion flakes just opposite each other from an edge to form a biface bevel and often biface serrations.
biface serration flaking: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: This flaking technique involved the removal of elongate, not so steep, pressure or percussion flakes just opposite each other from an edge to form biface serrations.
Bigo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A great earthwork site in western Uganda associated with the Chwezi people. The massive linear earthworks, over 6 1/2 miles long (10 km), is a ditch system, some of it cut out of rock, enclosing a large grazing area on a riverbank. It may have comprised both a royal capital and a cattle enclosure. Its construction would have required considerable labor and supports a distinction between cultivators and a pastoral aristocracy, which later became typical of this area. Radioactive carbon dating suggests Bigo was occupied from the mid-14th to the early 16th century. The site has also yielded early 13th-15th century AD roulette-decorated pottery, characteristic of the later Iron Age over much of East Africa.
Bilzingsleben: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A travertine site in Germany at which Middle Pleistocene specimens of skull fragments and teeth show resemblances to Homo erectus. Excavations have turned up thousands of stone tools of a Lower Palaeolithic Clactonian-type culture. An interglacial environment is indicated with a date in the penultimate or Holstein interglacial, perhaps some 250,000-350,000 years ago.
biodegradation: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The opposite of preservation; all organic matter is subject to biodegradation unless fossilized.
bioturbation: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The alteration of a site by nonhuman biological agents, e.g. burrowing rodents.
Bir Kiseiba: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Egypt's Sahara with early ceramics and cattle bones dating to c 9500 BP.
Bir Tarfawi: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A late Aterian site in the western Egyptian desert, dated to about 42,000 BC. The shores of a shallow lake were settled by hunters.
Birch Creek: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of rock shelters in Idaho with occupation from 8500 BP to historic times. The sites have been important in determining the culture and linguistics (Shoshonean) of the Rocky Mountain area.
bird bones: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: The identification of bird bones preserved on archaeological sites is a very specialized skill. Interpretation may be carried out in terms of diet and reconstruction of the ancient environment.
Birdlip: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Celtic site near Gloucester, England, dated to the 1st century BC. There are four cist graves, one with a woman's skeleton together with bronze bowls, gold and silver bracelets, bronze brooch, and a bronze mirror with incised and enamel decoration.
Birsmatten: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A site in the Bern district of Switzerland, Basis-Grotte, that has one of the longest known sequences of Mesolithic deposits. There are several levels of Sauveterrian and Tardenoisian occupation and extensive human remains.
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.
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.
Black-and-red ware: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: black and red ware
CATEGORY: ceramics
DEFINITION: Any Indian pottery with black rims and interior and red on the outside, due to firing in the inverted position, which was made beginning in the Iron Age. Characteristic forms include shallow dishes and deeper bowls. It first appeared on late sites of the Indus civilization and was a standard feature of the Banas culture. This ware has been found throughout much of the Indian peninsula with dates of the later 2nd and early 1st millennium BC. In the first millennium it became widespread in association with iron and megalithic monuments. In the Ganges Valley it post-dates ochre-colored pottery and generally precedes painted gray ware.
Blackwater Draw: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The deeply stratified type site for the Clovis point and Llano complex, located near Clovis, New Mexico, with evidence of occupation from the earliest Paleo-Indian through the Archaic period. Clovis points have been found associated with mammoth bones and Folsom points have been found with bison bones. Also found: Agate Basin points, Cody complex points, a Frederick point, and tools of the Archaic period. Blackwater Draw is also used to evaluate the chronological sequences at other sites. The Blackwater Draw Museum exhibits 12,000-year-old artifacts from the area's archaeological sites.
block excavation method: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: The excavation of an area of a site without leaving intervening walls or pillars, which exposes contiguous areas of floors better than the balk method.
blow-outs: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: blowout
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: An area in the earth that has become concave or depressed by wind-removal or erosion of sandy or soft, light soils. The topsoil and, perhaps, some of the lower soils, are so removed, especially in arid regions. A blowout resembles the crater of a volcano. Sometimes when earth is removed in this way, archaeological sites are revealed.
Bluefish Caves: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Caves discovered in 1975 in the northern Yukon, Canada, which may be the oldest archaeological site in North America. There are deposits of the late glacial period and some artifacts associated with woolly mammoth, Dall sheep, reindeer, and other vertebrates. The radiocarbon dates of bone fragments range from 25,000-12,000 bp. Evidence of human occupation is from at least 13,000-10,000 bp. There was a wedge-shaped microcore, microblades, and burins similar to those from Siberia of the same time. The lowest levels of 20,000 bp have debitage flakes and large numbers of cut and butchered animal bones.
Bockstein: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of cave sites in Germany with artifacts and faunal remains of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. Many Micoquian-style chert bifaces dated to the end of the last interglacial, plus Bockstein knives.
Bodh Gaya: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in northeast India, famous as the scene of the Buddha's enlightenment. It was there, under the bodhi (Bo) tree, that Gautama Buddha (Prince Siddhartha) became the Buddha. Archaeological remains include an Asockan pillar, erected by Emperor Asoka in 249 BC, and a railing surrounding the tree beneath which the Buddha meditated for six years before his enlightenment was erected in the 1st century BC.
Bodrogkeresztur: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a Middle Copper Age cemetery and culture in eastern Hungary, c 3900-3500 BC. It is the type site for an occupation that made Linear Pottery and used metal battle-axes and ax-adzes of shaft-hole type. The cemetery has at least fifty inhumation graves. The Bodrogkeresztur culture represents the first peak of metallurgical development in Hungarian prehistory, defined by large-scale production of gold ornaments and heavy shaft-hole copper tools. The occurrence of Transylvanian gold, Slovakian copper, and flint from Poland suggests long-distance exchanges.
bog sacrifice: CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Human bodies, animals, and artifacts that were deliberately deposited in peat bogs and other watery places, most notably in Denmark, but also elsewhere in northwestern Europe.
Boghazköy: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boghaz Keui, ancient Hattusas, Bogazkoy, Boghaz Koy
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of the Hittite capital of Hattusas, excavated by Hugo Winckler in the early 20th century and which yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from which much of Hittite history was reconstructed. The capital is on a rock citadel near the Halys River in central Turkey and the site had been occupied since the Chalcolithic times. In c 1500 BC, it became the citadel of Hattusas. As the Hittites' power grew, so did their capital, all within a massive defensive wall of stone and mudbrick. Six gateways were decorated with impressive monumental carved reliefs, showing a warrior, lions, and sphinxes. Four temples have been excavated within the walls, each grouped around an open porticoed court. Two buildings housed the archives with over 10,000 inscribed clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script and the Hittite language. A cemetery close to the city held large numbers of cremation burials, a surprisingly early occurrence of this rite. The city fell at the same time as the empire, c 1200 BC. Little is known of the Chalcolithic or Hittite Old Kingdom phases on the site; excavation has in the main concentrated on the monuments of the New Kingdom city.
Bohunice: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Middle Palaeolithic site in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. There are artifacts -- sidescrapers, denticulates, burins, and laurel-leaf points -- and some faunal remains that date to the early cold maximum of the last glacial.
bolas stone: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: bolas; bola; plural bolases
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Weighted balls of stone, bone, ivory, or ceramic that are either grooved or pierced for fastening to rawhide thongs and used to hunt prey. The bolas, still found today among some of the peoples of South America and among the Eskimo, usually consists of two or more globular or pear-shaped stones attached to each other long thongs. They are whirled and thrown at running game, with the thongs wrapping themselves around the limbs of the animal or bird on contact. Bolas stones have been found in many archaeological sites throughout the world, including Africa in Middle and Upper Acheulian strata.
Bonampak: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bonompak
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A small, Late Classic Period (c 800 AD) Maya site and ceremonial center in Chiapas, a satellite of Yaxchilán located on a tributary of the Usumacinta. The discovery in 1946 of the magnificent murals in the rooms of an otherwise modest structure astounded the archaeological world. From the floors to vault capstones, its stuccoed walls were covered with highly realistic polychrome scenes of a jungle battle, the arraignment of prisoners, and victory ceremonies. These shed an entirely new light on the nature of Maya society, which up until then had been considered peaceful. These murals are the most complete graphic portrayal of Maya life known. Hieroglyphs also occur frequently and the whole collection is seen as a continuous narrative.
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.
bone: CATEGORY: fauna
DEFINITION: The connective tissues of the body, consisting of crystallite minerals and collagen. After death, the proteins slowly decompose and the remaining mineral is subject to solution in acid soil conditions. Bones are preserved on a wide variety of archaeological sites. From early prehistory, the bones, horns, or antlers of animals man hunted or kept provided him with a vital source of raw material for constructing artifacts. There are many types of bone. There are a variety of relative age determination techniques applicable to bone material, including measurements of the depletion of nitrogen (bone dating) and the accumulation of fluorine and uranium.
bonebed: CATEGORY: feature
DEFINITION: A place on a site with the remains of a large number of animals, often of the same species and representing a single moment in time, as with a mass killing or mass death
Boriskowskij, Pavel Iossifovitch (1911-1991): CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A Russian archaeologist who worked at Palaeolithic sites in Amvrosievka, Bol'shaya Akkarzha, Kostenki, and Pushkari. He worked on the social aspects of the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition from a Marxist perspective.
Borneo: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The largest island of Southeast Asia, first mentioned in Ptolemy's Guide to Geography" of c 150 AD. Joined to mainland Southeast Asia during the low sea-level Pleistocene period archaeological sequences have been found in the Niah Caves of Sarawak and the Madai-Tingkayu region of Sabah. The Niah Great Cave sequence suggests the presence of a population of early Australoids from about 40 000 years ago and evidence from all sites indicate that the ancestors of present-day Borneans arrived around 3000 BC possibly from the Philippines. Though traces of Homo erectus from 2 million years ago were found on neighboring Java so far no evidence has been found of Homo erectus in Borneo. Roman trade beads and Indo-Javanese artifacts give evidence of a flourishing civilization dating to the 2nd or 3rd century BC. A Sanskrit inscription dated to c 400 AD is the earliest historical document on the island. Three rough foundation stones with an inscription recording a gift to a Brahman priest date from the early 5th century AD found at Kutai provide evidence of a Hindu kingdom. The first recorded European visitor was Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone who visited on his way from India to China in 1330."
Borsippa: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Birs, Birs Nimrud
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Babylonian city southwest of Babylon, Iraq. It is the site of the highest surviving ziggurat (154 feet/47 m), built by Nebuchadrezzar (reigned 605-562 BC) and dedicated to its patron god, Nabu. Borsippa's proximity to Babylon led to its being identified with the Tower of Babel and it became an important religious center. The incomplete and now ruined ziggurat was excavated in 1902 by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey. Hammurabi (reigned 1792-50 BC) built or rebuilt the Ezida temple at Borsippa, dedicating it to Marduk. Borsippa was destroyed by the Achaemenian king Xerxes I in the early 5th century and never fully recovered.
Boscoreale: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of two villas that were suburbs of Rome, near Pompeii, with important and sumptuous artifacts and painted rooms dating c 40 BC. These include possessions of the great patrician families of Rome, such as paintings illustrating Dionysiac mysteries, jewels, and magnificent gold and silver household furnishings. The cubiculum of one villa at Boscoreale is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of New York City and other items are kept at the Louvre. Many of the rich hoards were accidentally saved by the volcanic catastrophe of 79 AD.
Bosumpra: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site near Abetifi, Ghana, which yielded one of the first scientifically excavated assemblages of a West African Neolithic industry. Radiocarbon dating has shown that occupation began around the middle 4th millennium BC and continued for at least 3000 years. Throughout the sequence, a microlithic chipped-stone industry was associated with simple pottery and with ground-stone ax- or hoe-like implements.
bottom-up strategy: CATEGORY: technique
DEFINITION: A strategy of archaeological survey in which the survey is begun at an established site and work is done outward from it, attempting to find related sites.
Boucher (de Crèvecoeur) de Perthes, Jacques (1788-1868): SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boucher de Perthes
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: French archaeologist and writer who was the first to develop the idea that prehistory could be measured on the basis of periods of geological time. In 1837, in the Somme Valley, he discovered flint hand axes and other stone tools along with the bones of extinct mammals in deposits of the Pleistocene Epoch (or Ice Age, ending about 10,000 years ago). Boucher de Perthes was the first to draw attention to the Stone Age's revolutionary significance, because at the time, 4004 BC was still believed to be the year of the creation. His claims that these objects were the tools of ancient man and that they occurred in association with the bones of extinct animals were ridiculed. In 1859, Boucher de Perthes's conclusions were finally upheld by a group of eminent British scientists, including Charles Lyell, Hugh Falconer, John Preswich, and John Evans, who visited the excavated sites. His archaeological writings include De la Création: essai sur l'origine et la progression des êtres" (1838-41) and "Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes" (1847-64)."
Bougon: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cemetery site of megalithic tombs at Deux-Sèvres, France with radiocarbon dates to the mid-5th millennium BC, making them among the oldest chambered tombs in Europe. There is pottery from the Early Neolithic and Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age.
Bouqras: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: 7th-millennium BC Pre-Pottery Neolithic village near the River Euphrates in Syria. The first occupation phase had two levels with rectangular mud-brick houses. The next four levels had more solid mud-brick houses, some with plastered floors, benches, and pillars. The economy was based on hunting of wild animals, except in the final phase when sheep and cattle were bred. Sickle blades, pounders, and querns were used for wild or cultivated plants in the first phase. Artifacts include a white ware, made of mixed lime and ash and used to cover baskets, producing watertight vessels. Obsidian occurs in large quantities, indicating extensive trade networks linking Bouqras with the source sites in Anatolia.
Boussargues: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A village site in France with pottery of the Chalcolithic Fontbouisse culture, c 2500 BC. There are apsidal (having one end rounded) houses surrounded by a wall with projecting huts or towers of dry stone.
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.
Boxgrove: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Acheulian site in West Sussex, England, with biface manufacturing, lithic tools and debitage.
Boyne: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Boyne Valley tombs
CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: The site of prehistoric ritual monuments and Neolithic passage graves in the valley of the River Boyne, Ireland, dating to the 4th millennium BC. The complex includes five henges, a number of mounds, and the three great passage graves of Newgrange, Dowth, and Knowth. These megalithic tombs are set in round mounds and usually set on hilltops or grouped in cemeteries. These structures are notable for their size, their decoration, and the architectural expertise involved. The term 'Boyne culture' is sometimes used to describe the material found inside passage graves all over Ireland. Its characteristics are highly decorated Carrowkeel style of pottery, bone pins with poppy- or mushroom-shaped heads, pendants, and beads.
Bradford-on-Avon: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A parish in Wiltshire, England, that is the site of a monastery that existed in the late 7th century and the Saxon Church of St. Lawrence, dated in the early 8th century and discovered and carefully restored in 1856. St. Lawrence Church is possibly the finest and best-preserved Anglo-Saxon church in England.
Brahmagiri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A settlement site and cemetery dating from at least the 2nd millennium BC in southern India. Wheeler found a Chalcolithic level (c 2800-1250 BC) with abundant microliths, polished stone axes, and crude burnished gray pottery, an Iron Age level (1st millennium BC) with black-and-red ware, 300 tombs, stone circles, and ossuaries for bones, and a level from the 1st century AD with rouletted ware and traces of Roman contact. Bone points and some evidence of a stone-blade industry have also been found. There are many cattle bones, but also sheep and goats. The culture seemed to continue with little change for many centuries.
Brak, Tell: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Brak, Tall Birak at-Tahtani
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A tell on the upper Khabur River in Syria which had an Akkadian fortress and garrison and was occupied from at least the Halaf and Ubaid period until the mid-2nd millennium BC. On the Syrian-Iraqi border, it was a powerful fortress on the imperial line of communication and its most important remains are the four 'Eye Temples' of the Jemdet Nasr period, c 3000 BC. They are so-called for the large number of small, flat alabaster figurines of which the eyes are the only recognizable features. Eye temples were decorated with clay cones, copper panels, and gold work, in a style very similar to that found in the contemporary temples of Sumer. Halaf, Ubaid, and Uruk sherds have been found. When the site became a frontier post of the kingdom of Akkad, a palace was built by Naram-Sin c 2280 BC, and it became a depot for the storage of tribute and loot. The city was plundered after the fall of the Akkadian empire, but the palace was rebuilt in the Ur III period by Ur Nammu. A Roman fort was built there later.
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.
breccia: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A deposit of angular composite stone fragments held together by a matrix of natural cement, such as sap, lime, or a calcium-charged water. Its occurrence indicates a previous cold phase in the climate, since the rock is detached either by frost or alternating heat and cold. Many caves occupied by early man, e.g. Dordogne in southwest France, have layers of breccia crammed with bones, tools, art objects. This conglomerate used by the ancient peoples in architecture and sculpture. It is the opposite of conglomerate, in which the fragments are rounded and waterworn. Osseous or bone breccia is breccia in which fossil bones are found.
Breitenbach: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site in eastern Germany with artifacts including endscrapers, burins, and several bone points of the Aurignacian. Faunal remains are woolly mammoth and reindeer.
Brno: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The traditional capital of Moravia in the southeastern Czech Republic, which was inhabited in prehistoric times according to archaeological evidence. Important sites surround and are in the town, including a burial covered in red ochre, mammoth tusks, and ornaments, which has proven to be one of the earliest Upper Palaeolithic burials known. Traces of Neanderthal man were found in a cave called Svéduv stul (Swedish Table") and a camping ground of the Cro-Magnon mammoth hunters (30 000 BC) was discovered at Dolní Vestonice 20 miles (30 km) south. There are also traces of Celts and other tribes and many Slav settlements from the 5th and 6th centuries."
Broadbeach: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A burial site along the coast south of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Excavations uncovered 200 burials over a span of 1300 years, with wide variations in burial practices, possibly related to age, sex and status. Red ochre was present in nearly all graves, while grave goods included bone, shell, and stone artifacts and tools.
Broederstroom: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Early Iron Age village site in Pretoria, South Africa from the mid-1st millennium AD. Its remains, including 13 circular houses, gives a fairly complete picture of life at the time. There was iron-smelting and herding of cattle, sheep, and goats. Broederstroom pottery suggests connections with contemporary people to the northwest.
Broken Hill: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave and mine site in central Zambia in which a complete skull was found which is attributed to Rhodesian Man (Homo sapiens rhodesiensis) and has characteristics similar to Neanderthals. The skull was found on a ledge in 1922, and has no definite evidence for a date, but the artifacts in the Bone Cave were of the Middle Stone Age (Charaman industry). Dating by amino-acid racemization indicates an age of more than 100,000 years. Mining operations have exposed a long series of stone industries extending from the Acheulian to the Charman. Over 25 percent of the species represented by the associated faunal remains are now extinct.
Brynzeny: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A cave site in Moldova with Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and earlier artifacts. An unusual find was a carved and decorated woolly mammoth tusk.
Brzesc Kujawski: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large settlement site in central Poland of the Lengyel culture of the early 4th millennium BC. There were about 60 trapezoidal long houses, smaller areas of one or more house clusters, and a large inhumation cemetery with double graves, animal burials, and rich copper grave goods. There were four phases of occupation.
Bubanj: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bubanj-Hum
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic culture of late 4th to early 3rd millennia BC in the Morava valley of eastern Yugoslavia, close to Nis. The site, on a gravel terrace of a river, was first excavated in the 1950s and the culture is derived from the Vinca and closely related to Salcuta in Romania. The main periods recognized include the early Neolithic Starcevo with graphite painted ware and Vinca-like dark burnished ware; a phase of Baden pottery; and an Early Bronze Age occupation.
Bubastis: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tell Basta
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Egyptian site in the southeastern Nile delta with monuments of the 22nd Dynasty.
Buccino: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of sites near Buccino, southwest Italy, with a cemetery of rock-cut tombs of the Copper Age with radiocarbon dates of c 3350-2500 BC. There is also an Early Bronze Age settlement of the Apennine culture surrounded by a stone wall and containing rectangular stone-built huts.
Buchau: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Wasserburg Buchau
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Late Bronze Age settlement site in southern Germany with two Urnfield period occupations. There were single-room buildings and a larger two-roomed building in one occupation; the second settlement had nine complexes of large multi-room houses with outbuildings.
Buchis: CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: In ancient Egyptian religion, a sacred bull of Luxor that was the incarnation of the war god Mont. Buchis was believed the principal physical manifestation (ba) or Ra and Osiris. It was represented as a white bull with black markings or by the solar disk with two tall plumes between two horns. According to legend, his hair grew in the opposite direction from that of ordinary animals and changed color every hour. Particular bulls were worshipped as Buchis and were mummified and buried with honors upon their deaths.
bucket urn: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Type of large middle Bronze Age pot found within the overall repertoire of the Deverel-Rimbury ceramic tradition of southern Britain in the period 1500 BC through to 1200 BC. Usually over 60cm high, bucket urns are shaped like modern buckets with straight slightly sloping sides, wider at the top than the bottom. They are fairly plain with occasional applied cordons decorated with finger-tip impressions. Found on domestic sites where they were presumably used as storage vessels and as containers for cremations they are often found as secondary burials in earlier round barrows.
Bug / Dniester: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Bug-Dniester
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A complex of sites in two river valleys in Russia from the 5th millennium BC. Each phase is typified by short-lived sites on river terraces, occupied year-round for 5-10 years. There was hunting, fishing and shell-collecting, and some domestication of pigs, cattle, and einkorn wheat. Pointed-base pottery evolved there.
Buhen: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient Egyptian fort site of Lower Nubia, near Wadi Halfa, where the ruins of an Egyptian colony of the Middle Kingdom are located. Pharaoh Snefru (c 2575 BC) raided Nubia and established an Egyptian outpost at Buhen on the west bank of the Nile at the north end of the Second Cataract, and it endured for 200 years. Graffiti and inscribed seals at Buhen document Egyptian presence until late in the 5th dynasty (c 2325 BC). It was a center for Egyptian mining expeditions and to secure Egyptian control of trade in gold and other commodities. Buhen was probably abandoned in the face of immigration from the south and the deserts.
Bukit Tengku Lembu: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rock shelter site in Malaysia with remains related to the Ban Kao Neolithic and black ware that may be Indo-Roman rouletted ware.
Buni: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important early Indonesian port in west Java that was along the spice trade route in the first centuries AD. The burial site yielded crucibles, bronze items, and Indo-Roman rouletted ware.
Buret: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Sibera, western Turkistan, which was occupied in late Palaeolithic times. It is known for mammoth-tusk figurines of women. They resemble Paleolithic statuettes from Europe and the Middle East and the nude ones probably served as fertility symbols or as representations of the great goddess, whose cult was widespread. Of five found at Buret, the most unusual is a clothed woman wearing a one-piece trouser suit with a hood attached to it comparable to those still worn by present-day Eskimos.
Burgaschi-See Sud: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A lake settlement site of the Neolithic Cortaillod culture in Switzerland, dated to the mid-4th millennium BC. The organic remains are well-preserved as on other Cortaillod sites. The most important hunted fauna were red deer, roe deer, aurochs, and wild boar. Domesticated cattle, sheep, goat and pig were kept. Artifacts include copper beads.
Burrup Peninsula: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A rich archaeological area on the northwest coast of Western Australia with 10,000+ engravings on rocks, including geometric figures of humans and animals. Artifacts and features are quarries, shell middens, standing stones, and dry-stone walls and terraces. The site dates range from 6700-200 bp.
Burzahom: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic site in the Vale of Kashmir with phases of occupation dating from c 3050 BC to the 3rd-4th centuries AD. Deep pit dwellings are associated with ground stone axes, bone tools, and coarse gray burnished pottery. These characteristics plus the absence of blades, use of pierced rectangular knives, and association of dog skeletons with human burials, all seem to point to connections with central and northern Asia, as Mongolia, rather than with the rest of the Indian subcontinent. Hunting seems to have been the main basis of the economy. Phase II has houses of mud and mudbrick and Phase III has a group of large stones arranged in a rough semicircle.
Bush Barrow: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: The site of a rich grave under a barrow that belonged to the Wessex Culture of southern England. The single male inhumation included a bronze axe, two bronze daggers, a stone macehead.
Butana: CATEGORY: site; culture
DEFINITION: Seven sites in eastern Sudan, dating to 5500-4500 BP, with ceramics and stone artifacts. The cultural group belonged to the Kassala phase.
Butmir: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A Late Neolithic settlement near Sarajevo in Bosnia which gave its name to a culture, though the type site is not characteristic of the entire Butmir culture. The site represents a classic or late phase, defined by richly decorated ceramics (with incised meander designs) and a wide range of fired clay anthropomorphic figurines of various physical types, costume, and pathological condition. The culture was related to the Vinca culture. The Butmir culture comprises the Middle and Late Neolithic of central Bosnia, in the period c 4350-3700 BC.
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."
Byci Skála: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric cave site near Brno, Czechoslovakia, with artifacts and faunal remains of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and the Hallstatt (Early Iron Age). There are sidescrapers and burins, numerous bronze objects, inhumation burials and cremated bones. Several burials included wagons with iron tires, likely to have been high-status people.
Bygholm: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in Jutland, Denmark, with copper finds dating to c 4000 BC, among the earliest metal objects in Denmark.
Bylany: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A large village settlement of the Danubian culture in the loess lands of the Bohemian plain of Czechoslovakia. This large site had many phases of occupation, including by people who made stroke-ornamented pottery. There were timber-framed long houses in the three main phases of the Linear Pottery sequence. Subsistence was based on emmer wheat cultivation and cattle husbandry.
Byzovaya: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An Upper Palaeolithic site in Russia, the northernmost Palaeolithic site in Europe (65?) and probably occupied before the last glacial maximum (before 25,000 bp).
Córdoba: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southern Spain that was probably Carthaginian in origin and was occupied by the Romans in 152 BC. It declined under the rule of the Visigoths from the 6th to the early 8th century AD. In 711 Córdoba was captured and largely destroyed by the Muslims. Its recovered under 'Abd ar-Rahman I, a member of the Umayyad family, who made Córdoba his capital in 756. 'Abd ar-Rahman I founded the Great Mosque of Córdoba, which was later enlarged and completed about 976. The city quickly rose to become one of the finest in Europe, rivaled only by Baghdad and Constantinople. In the 10th century, one of the rulers of Cordoba built a pleasure-city outside its walls known as Medina al Zahara; this is now an archaeological site.
Caballo Muerto: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A complex of monuments of the Initial Period and Early Horizon on the north coast of Peru. There are 17 mounds on the Moche Valley site, with the most complex structure at Huaca de los Reyes. It is a multi-level, U-shaped complex decorated with relief friezes, which inside is a series of structures, stairways, pillared halls, and a courtyard.
Cabenge: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in southwest Sulawesi with late Pliocene fauna. Stone tools are found in association with bones. Toalian tools in the area include large core tools of the chopper/chopping tool tradition.
Caerleon: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Isca
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A town and archaeological site in Wales in which the Romans established a legionary fortress dating to 74-75 AD when the conquest of the Silures of Wales began. The foundation of the fortress is set on a terrace along the Usk and it is one of three major legionary fortresses -- the other two being at Chester and York. Originally built of timber and earth, it had been largely rebuilt in stone (253-255) before the Roman garrison left during the abandonment of the province. Evidence has been found for centurion houses, workshops, barracks, stores, ovens, hospital, baths, and latrines. There is also an amphitheater, two bath buildings, and extensive cemeteries in an associated settlement. The fortress was occupied, probably by a nonmilitary population, until the 370s. Caerleon, traditionally a seat of the legendary King Arthur, was a Welsh princely capital until the Norman Conquest (1066).
Caesarea: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Cherchel, Caesarea Palaestinae, Caesarea Maritima, Straton's Tower, Strato's Tower
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An ancient port and administrative city of Palestine on the Mediterranean coast of present-day Israel. It is often called Caesarea Palaestinae or Caesarea Maritima to distinguish it from Caesarea Philippi. It was originally an ancient Phoenician settlement known as Straton's (Strato's Tower) and was rebuilt and enlarged by Herod the Great around 22-10 BC, who renamed it for his patron, Caesar Augustus. Herod also rebuilt the harbor, which traded with his newly built city at Sebaste (Augusta) of ancient Samaria. There were Hellen