Rune

An angular script for carving on wood or stone developed by Germanic peoples (northern Germany, Scandinavia) around the 4th century AD through contact with Mediterranean alphabets. The early alphabet, with 24 letters divided into three groups of eight, was mainly used for short commemorative or m...

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Rune

Satellite Sensor Imagery

A method of recording sites from the air using infrared radiation that is beyond the practical spectral response of photographic film. The method is useful for tracing prehistoric agricultural system.

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Satellite Sensor Imagery

Funeral Urn

The receptacle in which the ashes are placed after cremation.

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Funeral Urn

Jute

A branch of the Germanic peoples who, with the Angles and Saxons, invaded Britain in the 5th century AD. There is evidence that their home was in the Scandinavian area (probably Jutland). According to the Venerable Bede, the Jutes settled in Kent, the Isle of Wight, and parts of Hampshire. There ...

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Jute

Mimbres

Regional variant of the Mogollon culture, centered in south-central New Mexico, and dated to 1000-1200 AD. The Mimbres people are particularly renowned for the black-on-white painted pottery bowls which they made especially to be put in burials. The pottery is decorated with abstract designs and ...

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Mimbres

Vase Support

A pottery vessel with a hollow cylindrical base which supports a dishlike upper surface; the name for a pottery pedestal or ring made to support round-based pottery which could not stand by itself on a flat surface. The term is used especially in European prehistory to describe highly decorated i...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Vase Support

Needle-Case

A container in which needles are held.

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Needle-Case

Haua Fteah

A large cave site in Cyrenaica, Libya, with the most complete sequence, back to c 78,000 BC, of Upper Pleistocene and Holocene industries known from a single site in North Africa. The oldest flint industry is a Libyan variant of the pre-Aurignacian (Libyan Amudian), and is followed successively b...

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Haua Fteah

Homo Habilis

Handy man, the oldest species of the genus Homo. It was small-built but had a larger brain than the Australopithecines and was a toolmaker. Its fossils have been found in East and South African dating to 2.2-1.6 million years ago at the famous sites of Koobi Fora and Olduvai Gorge. Dr. Louis Leak...

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Homo Habilis

Quetta

A city and adjacent valley in western Pakistan with tell sites produced a chronological sequence for the region. A pre-pottery occupation with domestic animals was dated c 5000 BC and was followed by creamy handmade and basket-marked pottery, later joined by red and black painted ware in the late...

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Quetta

Ainu

The native people of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands, Japan, who are physically different from their Mongoloid neighbors. They once lived by hunting, trapping, and fishing and also grew buckwheat and numbered about 17,000 in the 1940s. Ainu appear to be descendants of the early Caucasoi...

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Ainu

Idealist Explanation

Any rationalistic account of human goals and of the universe in general. A form of explanation stressing the search for insights into the historical circumstances leading up to the event by studying the ideas and motives of the individuals involved.

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Idealist Explanation

Teapot

A pot with a handle, spout, and lid, in which tea is prepared.

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Teapot

Ventilator Shaft

The vertical portion of a ventilation system, which is a specialized construction for allowing fresh-air intake into a structure. Ventilation systems are normally found in pithouses and kivas, rarely in rooms. The ventilator shaft is outside the main chamber of the structure and is connected to t...

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Ventilator Shaft

Slip

A form of surface finishing applied to pottery, a mixture of clay and water applied before firing to improve the pot's smoothness and decrease porosity (it makes it more watertight by clogging the pores of the earthenware). Slip often contains the pigment which imparts, after firing, the ground c...

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Slip

Kechi Beg

A 3rd-millennium BC site in the Quetta Valley of western Pakistan, which has given its name to a fine buff-colored pottery painted in black and solid bands interspersed with delicately painted patterns. Red paint was also used to produce a polychrome effect.

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Kechi Beg

Warming Pan

A pan with a long handle which would be filled with coals and drawn over sheets to warm a bed.

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Warming Pan

Daniel, Glyn Edmund

A British prehistorian who studied the megaliths of Europe and developed the study of the history of archaeology. He popularized the discipline through his writings.

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Daniel, Glyn Edmund

Finglesham

An early Saxon cemetery in Kent, used between the early 6th and mid-7th centuries. The large inhumation cemetery has produced an impressive collection of material including a pattern-welded sword, garnet-inlaid bird brooches made in Kent, radiate brooches from the continent, and a richly decorate...

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Finglesham

Involution

A structure that develops within the active layer of the Periglacial (permafrost) zone. Cryoturbation (seasonal freezing) causes movement within the layer and sorting of its component materials. Involutions help to define the area of ancient periglacial zones but their action can cause disturbanc...

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Involution

Muang Sima

Settlement in the Mun valley, Khorat, Thailand, occupied by early 1st millennium AD. The moated site was the center of a small Indianized state known from an inscription as Sri Canasa.

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Muang Sima

Sabratha

Roman port on the north African coast in Libya, remarkable for its extensive imperial Roman remains. Originally settled by the Phoenicians in the 5th century BC, Sabratha was one of the three cities of Roman Tripolitania. Together with neighboring Oea and Leptis Magna, it made up a trio of wealth...

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Sabratha

Scrape

To move a hard or sharp edge across (a surface), esp. to make something smooth. apply (a hard or sharp edge)

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Scrape

Schlepp Effect

The result of the butchering process in which the meat is piled on the skin and the lower limb bones, which are used to drag the meat home. When this is done, the upper limb bones are discarded at the kill site, and the lower limb bones are found more commonly at the habitation site.

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Schlepp Effect

Akkad

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 ci...

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Akkad