Amersfoot interstadial

An interstadial of the Weichselian cold stage. It has been dated by radiocarbon to between 68,000 and 65,000 bp, but this is at the extreme range of the technique (see radiocarbon dating) and it may be earlier.

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Amersfoot interstadial

Amekni

Site in the Hoggar highlands of southern Algeria, dated to about the 7th millennium bc. Pottery was in use even at this early date, and it shows strong similarities with the ‘wavy-line’ ware of the ‘aquatic civilization’ as known from Early Khartoum. Barbed bone harpoon heads, however, were not r...

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Ambrona

One of a pair of Lower Palaeolithic sites (sccTorralba) in the province of Soria, central Spain. First discovered by the Marques de Cerralbo before World War I, Ambrona was extensively excavated in the early 1960s. The occupants hunted mainly elephants of the species Elephas antiquus and also dee...

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Amber

Fossilized resin. It is soft and easily carved into jewellery and other artefacts. Amber is normally yellow or orange and transparent, but may be clouded due to the presence of many tiny air bubbles. The main source of European amber is as nodular fragments in the Tertiary sand deposits of Prussi...

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Amaravati

(1) An area of southern India with a Buddhist stupa dating from the period c200 bc to 200 ad. It is built of limestone and finely decorated with scenes from the life of the Buddha. (2) An archaeologically significant territory of Champa, corresponding roughly to the present central Vietnamese pro...

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Amaravati

AI ‘Ubaid

See Ubaid.

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AI ‘Ubaid

Alton Ha

A moderately sized Classic Maya site, located 10 km inland from the coast of Belize [formerly British Honduras], It is best known for its numerous caches of obsidian and jade and other rich exotic material including the largest piece of worked jade in Mesoamerica — a 4.5 kg head of the Maya sun g...

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Alton Ha

Altin-Depe

A large Chalcolithic and Bronze Age settlement in southern Turkmenia, Soviet Central Asia, similar in nature and history to Namazga-Depe. In its urban (Namazga V) phase of the early 2nd millennium bc (later 3rd millennium bc), it was smaller in size than Namazga-depe itself, covering c45 hectares...

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Altar De Sacrificios

Lowland Maya site located at the junction of the Pasion and Chixoy Rivers in the southwest Peten province of Guatemala. Its earliest remains (Xe pottery) date to 1000 bc, the Middle Pre-Classic. The beginnings of formal architecture (a ceremonial precinct of three thatch-and-pole buildings on pac...

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Altamira

One of the two most famous painted Palaeolithic caves (the other being Lascaux). Altamira is situated in the Cantabrian Mountains in Santander province, northern Spain. The 280-metre-long cave was investigated by Don Marcelino de Sautola in 1875, but the paintings were only noticed several years ...

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Altai

Mountainous region of southern Siberia which has yielded important prehistoric remains. As well as some possible Palaeolithic deposits at Ulalinka Creek, a late glacial occupation is documented on a number of sites including the Ust’Kanskaia Cave. Food-producing cultures appeared probably in the ...

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Alsónémedi

Large cremation cemetery of the Hungarian earlier Bronze Age Nagyrév group, located 30 km south of Budapest, is found near the same village as a large inhumation cemetery of the Late Copper Age Baden culture. The Baden graves yielded cart burials and paired oxen burials, indicating the importance...

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Alphabet

See writing.

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Alpera

The Cueva Vieja at Alpera, southeast Spain, has a fine panel of paintings over the back wall of its shallow rock shelter. They belong to the Spanish Levant cycle, probably of the Mesolithic period between about 8000 be and 5000 be. The humans include a group of women and some hunters or warriors ...

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Almizaraque

A settlement site in Almeria, southeast Spain, belonging to the Copper Age Los Millares culture. Houses, oval in plan and with traces of plaster, were surrounded by a ditch. Nearby was a megalithic tomb, similar to those of Los Millares. The site, which was formerly thought to represent one of a ...

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Al Mina

Site on the coast of Syria near the mouth of the Orontes River. It was at least in part a Greek settlement established from Euboea before the end of the 9th century bc and probably called Posideion. It was an entrepot site, and excavated buildings were all probably warehouses, built to a standard...

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Almerian

Neolithic culture of southeast Spain of the 5th and 4th millennia bc. number of open settlements are known (seeEl Garcel), usually on hilltops. The houses were constructed of wattle and daub, and were circular in plan, with hearths and storage pits. This culture is known particularly for its tomb...

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Almerian

Alloy

A mixture of metals. Alloys containing only two major metals are known as binary alloys, those with three major constituents as ternary alloys. Bronze is a binary alloy of copper and tin; brass a binary alloy of copper and zinc. Alloys are not simple mixtures but complex crystalline structures wh...

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Altered interstadial

An interstadial of the Weichselian cold stage. It is dated to between 11,800 and 11,000 bp.

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Altered interstadial

Allen

(d. 1940). One of the pioneers of aerial photography between the two World Wars. Piloting his own aircraft and operating a hand-made camera, he took many thousands of aerial photographs, mostly in southern England. He emphasized the value of oblique aerial photographs, as opposed to the vertical ...

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Allen

All Cannings Cross

An important site of the Early Iron Age in Wiltshire, southern England. Within this open settlement were rectangular-built houses and evidence of iron smelting. It is noted especially for its fine haematite-coated bowls with horizontal furrows above the carinations. In the earlier, diffusionist, ...

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Alitar

Mount southeast of BoghazkOy in northern Anatolia. The lowest stratum comprises eight Chalcolithic levels, beginning late in the 4th millennium bc. The Early Bronze Age levels are characterized by Alitar painted pottery, which was hand-made with a buff or light red burnish, sometimes with geometr...

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Alitar

Ali Kosh

Tell in the Deh Luran plain of Khuzistan, southwest Iran, occupied c7500-5600 be. This site, excavated in the 1960s by a team led by Frank Hole and Kent Flannery, was the first early farming site where significant quantities of plant remains were collected by the flotation technique, representing...

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Alignment

Term referring to single or multiple rows of standing stones (menhirs). They occur most frequently in Brittany (see Carnac) and in the British Isles, where they are often found in association with stone circles or henge monuments. Other exam ples occur in Corsica. Very little dating evidence has ...

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Al Hiba

See Lagash.

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Alfred The Great

Our impression of King Alfred is largely gained from two sources: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the biography written by his friend and teacher Asser. Bom in Wantage in 849, Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex in 871 and had several encounters with invading Danish forces before whom he was ...

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Alfred Jewel

An outstanding example of 9th-century Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship found at Newton Park, Somerset, in 1893 and now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The jewel is a unique piece, about 8 cm long, consisting of an oval portrait (believed to be a personification of sight) executed in different coloured ...

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Alexandria

Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 bc on a narrow strip of land in the northwestern area of the Nile Delta, Alexandria soon replaced Memphis as capital of Egypt. With its double harbour favourably situated at a natural intersection of the shipping lanes of the classical world, the new city rap...

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Alexander the Great

Bom in 356 bc, Alexander was tutored for six years by the philosopher Aristotle before he succeeded his father Philip as king of Macedonia and the mainland of Greece. He realized the Greeks’ long-felt ambition to be free from Persian domination by crushing Darius, but extended the defeat of Persi...

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Aleppo

City in north Syria, covering an ancient city which remains unexcavated. Aleppo is located on the route between the Orontes and the Euphrates Valley, and was important for trade from at least the 2nd millennium BC. Because of its importance it was fought over by Hittites, Egyptians and Assyrians....

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Aichi

A town in Ladakh, Tibet, where A.H. Francke discovered and excavated a number of ‘nomads’ tombs’ between 1900 and 1910. The tombs measured approximately 1.8 by 1.4 metres and were cl.8 metres deep; they were lined and covered with undressed stone slabs. Each contained from 3 to 20 long-headed sku...

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Aichi

Alcala

Cemetery of the early metal ages in southern Portugal containing cORBEL-vaulted tombs of the megalithic tradition. This site, like Los Millares, was formerly thought to be a colony of Aegean settlers; few now accept this view.

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Alcala

Albarello

A late medieval Spanish drug-jar with particularly fine tin glaze over typically blue designs that imitate the forms of Arabic script. Early albarelli were made in several parts of Spain and have occasionally been found in Britain and the Netherlands.

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Albany industry

Stone industry of southernmost South Africa, dated between the 11th and 6th millennia bc, best known from stratified assemblages at Boomplaas and Robberg. It directly precedes the appearance of the local backed-microlith Wilton industry. Albany assemblages contain few formal tools other than unst...

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Albany industry

Alapraia

Site of a group of rock-cut tombs of the Copper Age near Lisbon in Portugal. Simple chambers were entered through smaller vestibules. Finds include ritual objects such as clay sandals, clay lunulae and so-called ‘pine-cones’ (named from their shape; their function is unknown). Beaker pottery also...

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Alamgirpur

Situated northeast of Delhi in the Ganges Valley, Alamgirpur is the easternmost known site of the Harappan civilization. The small late Harappan settlement was succeeded after a gap of unknown duration by an occupation with Painted Grey ware, when iron was in use, and by later phases of occupation.

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Alalakh

Ancient name of the north Syrian city located at Tell Atchana.

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Alalakh

Alaka

Number of shell middens located in the mangrove swamps of the northwest coast of Guyana have been grouped together into the Alaka Phase. An Archaic lifestyle based heavily on shellfish-gathering is indicated throughout. Some crude percussion-made stone tools, manos and metates are present, with c...

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