Site Plan

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.

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Site Plan

Medvednjak

A pair of Neolithic settlement sites on adjoining hills, north of Smederevska Palanka in northern Serbia. The first site is dated to the earliest Vinca phase; the second has two occupations of the Early Vinca and Late Vinca (Vinca culture c 4500-3500 BC). Complete house-plans from the latest leve...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Medvednjak

Box

A container with a flat base and sides and usually a lid

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Box

Jellinge

A site in East Jutland, in Denmark, which seems to be the remains of a 10th-century royal palace and important burial ground. Among the groups of remarkable monuments are the two largest barrows in that country. The barrows are traditionally held to be that of Viking king Gorm (d. c 950 AD) and T...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Jellinge

Bow-Drill

A device for perforating beads or other small objects, in which a bow is used to rotate the shaft of the bit

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Bow-Drill

Otolith

Small, dense calcareous concretions from the middle ear region of fish, quite commonly found on archaeological sites. Otoliths are species-distinctive, and can therefore be used for identification purposes in the analysis of fish remains from a site. They also grow in annual rings and can thus be...

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Otolith

Caudal

Pertaining to the tail.

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Caudal

Ehringsdorf

A Middle Pleistocene site in eastern Germany near Weimar. A badly broken skull and other human remains have been found with stone tools resembling the Mousterian. The fossil man is of generalized Neanderthal type and the artifacts include scrapers, points, and bifaces which were typical of the Mi...

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Ehringsdorf

L/W

Long axis or length (l) in a ratio with width (w). Shape of particles can be characterized this way.

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L/W

Chiricahua

The second of three chronological stages of the Cochise culture in southern Arizona and New Mexico, with dates clustering between 4000-500 BC. The appearance of distinctive, side-notched projectile points indicates an interest in hunting though a mixed food-gathering economy is indicated by assem...

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Chiricahua

Dölauer Heide

A Neolithic settlement in southeastern Germany of the Funnel Beaker culture. Excavations revealed fortifications of bank-and-ditch systems, a palisade, and a number of barrows - all on a hilltop.

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Dölauer Heide

Claw Beaker

Elaborate glass beakers dating from c 500 AD onward in Early Saxon graves and Frankish burials. Also called Rüsselbecher, the beakers have two superimposed rows of hollow, trunklike protrusions curving down to rejoin the wall of the vessel above a small button foot. In form they are similar to fr...

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Claw Beaker

Kok Charoen

A site in central Thailand, dating to the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, which yielded occupational remains and more than 60 burials furnished with pottery similar to that of Non Nok Tha. It is considered to be the largest Neolithic burial site so far discovered in Southeast Asia.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Kok Charoen

Lower Nubia

The part of the Nile Valley south of the traditional border of Egypt at Aswan as far as the Second Cataract of the Nile River. The region of Lower Nubia, basically between the first and second Nile cataracts, saw one of the earliest phases of state formation in the world when rulers of the A-Grou...

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Lower Nubia

Isochrestic Style

A style of tool-making representing the maker's particular choices among alternatives in a particular cultural context.

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Isochrestic Style

Mitochondrial Dna

The genetic material inside the mitochondrian, an energy-producing unit of a cell, which has been studied to calculate the antiquity of modern humans. Some mtDNA studies suggest that modern humans arose first in Africa around 200,000 years ago. Investigations of human mitochondrial DNA reveal tha...

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Mitochondrial Dna

Laodicea

The ancient name of several cities of western Asia, mostly founded or rebuilt in the 3rd century BC by rulers of the Seleucid dynasty, and named after Laodice, the mother of Seleucus I Nicator, or after Laodice, daughter or niece of Antiochus I Soter and wife of Antiochus II Theos. It became one ...

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Laodicea

Knife

A backed blade; a cutting instrument composed of a blade and a handle into which it is fixed, either rigidly or with a joint

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Knife

Florescence

In archaeology, what is considered the peak period of a culture - the state or period of flourishing - particularly in material aspects such as art and architecture.

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Florescence

Efimenko, Pyotr Petrovich

A Russian archaeologist who made important contributions to the development of Palaeolithic archaeology, promoting the study of sociological aspects from a Marxist viewpoint. He made the first discovery of a Palaeolithic longhouse (Kostenki) and later published a major work on Palaeolithic prehis...

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Efimenko, Pyotr Petrovich

Tylissos

Minoan settlement site on Crete with Neopalatial houses.

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Tylissos

Dalton

A complex of the late Paleo-Indian and Archaic periods of the midwestern and eastern U.S., associated with the Dalton projectile point class. The point was varied due to reuse and resharpening. The Dalton sites indicate that hunting deer was important. Brand in northeast Arkansas and Stanfield-Wo...

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Dalton

Philistines

One of the Peoples of the Sea who, repulsed from Egypt c 1200 BC, drove the Canaanites from southern Palestine (name derived from their name) and settled there, marking the beginning of the Iron Age in that region. They were a warlike, seafaring people and adopted the culture of the Canaanites, b...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Philistines

Qantir

Site of an ancient Egyptian harbor town in the eastern Delta near modern el-Khatana. It was the ancient Egyptian capital in the 15th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties. It was likely first founded in the Old Kingdom, but then was overrun by the Palestinians c 1700 BC. Refounded by Seti I (1290-1279 BC), i...

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Qantir

Bes

A minor god of ancient Egypt, appearing only in the New Kingdom, represented as an ugly dwarf. The name Bes is now used to designate a group of deities of similar appearance. Bes, associated with music and childbirth, was intended to inspire joy or to drive away evil spirits. He was also popular ...

archaeologsEnglishGod Names

Bes