Curation

Deliberate attempts by prehistoric peoples to preserve key artifacts and structures for posterity. These artifacts that are reused and transported so often that they are rarely deposited in contexts that their original locations of manufacture and use are no longer known.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Curation

Doian

A stone industry found exclusively in the southern and eastern areas of Somalia and northeastern Kenya in East Africa. Doian assemblages contain pressure-flaked small points, backed microliths, and flake scrapers. A post-Pleistocene age is possible but not yet determined.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Doian

Quoit Bead

Doughnut-shaped type of early Bronze Age faience bead.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Quoit Bead

Chemical Anomaly

Any change in the chemical constituency of the soils underlying a habitation, creates by the common activities of human beings.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Chemical Anomaly

Commandery

In ancient China, a military and administrative unit during the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) that governed newly conquered areas. It was run by a commander.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Commandery

Quillwork

A type of decoration for clothing and possessions characteristic of certain North American Indian peoples, using softened and dyed porcupine quills to make elaborate applied designs.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Quillwork

Bluefish Caves

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 fragmen...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Bluefish Caves

Vikletice

Corded Ware culture cemetery in Bohemia.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Vikletice

Cataract

Any rocky areas of rapids interrupting the flow of the Nile River, caused by granite abruptly interspersed in the Nubian sandstone belt. There are six numbered and several minor cataracts between Aswan and Khartoum, which are hazards to navigation. The 2nd Cataract, the most formidable, was impas...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Cataract

Primary Flake

An unretouched flake of stone from which smaller flakes are removed during knapping. A flake with its dorsal aspect completely covered by cortex.

archaeologsEnglishArtifacts

Primary Flake

Backstrap

A simple loom known in pre-Columbian America and in Asia and still used in western Mexico, Guatemala, and other places in Central America. A continuous warp thread passes between two horizontal poles, one attached to a support and the other to a seated weaver, who adjusts the tension by moving fo...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Backstrap

Mina

A pottery style found in coastal shell mounds in Brazil near the mouth of the Amazon, with a radiocarbon date around 3880 BC. It is among the oldest pottery in the New World.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Mina

Apron

The lip or exposed portion of a prehistoric cave or rock shelter, the soil of which typically contains durable cultural materials such as flaked stone and ceramic artifacts.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Apron

Qin

Name of an Eastern Zhou state centered in the Wei River valley of Shaanxi province, China, and of the dynasty (221-206 BC) founded after the Qin state had conquered and absorbed the various states ruling the rest of China. The first emperor of the dynasty, Qin Shihuangdi, established his capital ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Qin

Clovis Point

A distinctive, fluted, lanceolate (leaf-shaped) stone projectile point characteristic of the early Paleo-Indian period, c 10,000-9000 BC, and often found in association with mammoth bones. It is named for Clovis, New Mexico, where it was first found. The concave-based projectile point has a longi...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Clovis Point

Tule Springs

Site near Las Vegas, Nevada, with traces of human occupation c 11,000 BP - in the form of hearths and artifacts.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Tule Springs

Statue

A three dimensional representation.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Statue

Gonvillars

A Neolithic cave site in France with a Bandkeramik camp from c 5000 BC. There was hunting, pottery, domesticated animals, and cultivated cereals. This was followed by Rössen occupation c 4000-3500 BC.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Gonvillars

Finishing Nail

A nail used on trim and cabinetwork where nailheads must be concealed

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Finishing Nail

Archaeological Culture

The constantly recurring artifacts or group of assemblages that represent or are typical of a specific ancient culture at a particular time and place. The term describes the maximum grouping of all assemblages that represent the sum of the human activities carried out within a culture.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Archaeological Culture

Pitchstone

Any of various volcanic glasses distinguished by their dull pitchlike luster

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Pitchstone

Silla

A kingdom traditionally dated 57 BC-668 AD, the oldest of the monarchies of the Three Kingdoms period, and including the Unified or Great Silla period of 668-935, the golden age of Korean art. It eventually came to cover most of southeastern Korea east of the Naktong River. The original territory...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Silla

Microburin

A microlith produced by notching and snapping a blade; a small piece of stone snapped off of a microlith that is a byproduct of the manufacture of microliths. A blade is notched and then snapped off where the chipping has narrowed and weakened it. One piece becomes a microlithic tool, while the r...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Microburin

Fabric

The material of which pottery is composed; the body of processed clay and temper additives in ceramics.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Fabric

Hadar

A site in northeast Ethiopia where remains of Australopithecus 3.5 to 2.5 million years old have been found, named by their finders A. afarensis. The best-known specimens are an almost half-complete skeleton known as Lucy, and fragments of at least thirteen individuals found together. Claims of s...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Hadar