Hurri

Fontbrégoua

Cave site in southern France with Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic occupations, dating to c 8000 BC. Hunting and gathering remains are hazelnuts and plants; there was domestic livestock and pottery of the Cardial and Epicardial phases. Neolithic remains include pits of human bones with cutmarks and ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Fontbrégoua

Trundholm

Site where a bronze wheeled model of a horse pulling a disk, dated to c 1650 BC, was found in the Trundholm bog in Zealand, Denmark. It probably represented a chariot of the sun and was deposited as a ritual offering.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Trundholm

Fast Ray

The component of light passing through an anisotropic mineral with the lower index of refraction.

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Fast Ray

Side Notch

Shallow and wide indentations worked into both side edges of a stone tool near the base

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Side Notch

Mersin

The tell site of Yümük-Tepe on the southern coast of Turkey (Anatolia) with 33 major levels, the bulk of which are Neolithic and Chalcolithic. The lowest levels were of an Early Neolithic characterized by monochrome impressed wares and radiocarbon dated to 6000 BC. A long series of Chalcolithic l...

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Mersin

Sociofact

Archaeological data resulting from past human social activities; an object whose primary function is to express or establish social rank, rather than to serve practical or ideological needs. An example is an ax that is used as a symbol of chiefdom rather than as a weapon.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Sociofact

Nahua

The tribal population of Central Mexico, originating from the north. The last and best-known were the Aztecs. The language of the Aztecs, Nahua, is spoken by all the Nahua peoples in a variety of dialects.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Languages, Nations

Nahua

Nevasa

Prehistoric site on the northern Deccan plateau in western central India with a Middle Palaeolithic industry, a regional Chalcolithic with Jorwe ware of the later 2nd millennium BC, and a settlement of the late 1st millennium BC with wares of late Iron Age southern India. Another phase shows trad...

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Nevasa

Fynbos

The vegetation of the Cape Floristic Kingdom of Cape Province, South Africa, which has an unusually high number of species but is treeless and almost grassless. Its shrub-filled area has been important for approximately 125,000 years.

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Fynbos

Clastic Rock

A rock composed of broken pieces of older rocks

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Clastic Rock

Bleeper

A surveying instrument that is a type of proton gradiometer, working on the same principle as the magnetometer. When two detector bottles are used, one near ground level and one about 2 m above, small magnetic anomalies underground affect the lower, nearer, bottle more strongly than the upper. Th...

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Bleeper

Kamilamba

Named after a site in the Upemba depression of the valley of the upper Lualaba in southeastern Zaire, this is the initial phase of the local Early Iron Age, precursor of the Kisalian. Dated to between the 5th and 8th centuries ad, it is poorly illustrated by the research so far undertaken, but th...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Kamilamba

Pirri Graver

An Australian tool type with extensive flaking on one face and an underside curvature as well as retouched cutting edge on the narrow end. They are up to 80 mm long. They seem to correspond to that of the Tula.

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Pirri Graver

Clactonian

An early flake-tool culture of Europe, dating from the early Mindel-Riss (Great Interglacial) of the Pleistocene epoch, which occurred from 1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago. It was named after discoveries at Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, England. A kind of concave scraper, perhaps used to smooth and shape ...

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Clactonian

Tagar Culture

Culture in south Siberia in the region of Minusinsk c 700-200/100 BC. The Bronze Age Karasuk culture was replaced by the Tagar culture, which endured until the 2nd century BC, producing an art of animal motifs related to that of the Scythians of southern European Russia. They also had broad dagge...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Tagar Culture

Sediment

A layer of soil, organic material, or rock particles which are no longer in the place where they were formed geologically but which have been redeposited away from their source. The agents of redeposition can be weathering, erosion, decay, soil-forming processes, and man himself. The material is ...

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Sediment

Chenla

A kingdom of the Khmers of the 6th-8th centuries AD in what is now southern Laos. It expanded to absorb the territories formerly occupied by Funan (now Cambodia). At the beginning of the 8th century it split into Water Chenla and Land Chenla. Chenla ceased to exist when the kingdom of Angkor was ...

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Chenla

Aspect

A characteristic or component that constitutes one of the traits of a culture or community. The term also describes a group of components that display a great many of the specific elements (traits) of a culture.

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Aspect

Valhöll

In Norse mythology, the hall of slain warriors, who live there blissfully under the leadership of the god Odin, ready to defend the gods at Ragnarök.

archaeologsEnglishMythology

Valhöll

Putnam, Frederic Ward

Curator of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, from 1875-1909. He was a leader in the founding of anthropological science in the US. He was important as an archaeologist who classified and described finds and as an administrator and archaeological sponsor...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Putnam, Frederic Ward

General Analogy

An analogy used in archaeological interpretation based on broad and generalized comparisons that are documented across many cultural traditions. The broadest level of archaeological theory, referring to frameworks that describe and attempt to explain cultural processes that operated in the past.

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General Analogy

Kostenki

Group of 25 Upper Palaeolithic sites on the Don River in Russia. The most important are Kostenki I, XIV, VIII, XII, II, XI, and XVII. The Early Upper Palaeolithic occupations, associated with the remains of horse and other mammals began by 25,000 bp. Other sites dated to c 36,000-26,000 bp with a...

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Kostenki

Variant

A term used in projectile typology to describe a variation of a type.

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Variant

Function

The purpose or use of a component within a culture. The second goal of archaeological research is analysis of data and their relationships to determine function and thus reconstruct and create synchronic descriptions of ancient behavior. It is a model of culture that is keyed to the functions of ...

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Function

Quentovic

A port and trading center on the English Channel in the Early Medieval period, which had a toll and a mint. Its coins were first minted in the early 7th century and during the 8th-9th centuries its mint was one of the most important in the Carolingian Empire. Despite its prominence, the location ...

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