Categories - Archaeologs

Postcranial Skeleton

All bones other than those of the cranial skeleton.

Postcranial Skeleton

Whistle

Simple musical instrument comprising a hollow tube, often of bone or wood, down which air can be blown; one or more holes in the side of the tube can be covered and uncovered with the fingers to alter the flow of air and thus produce a range of different sounds. When the holes are placed at propo...

Whistle

Soil Chemistry

Methods used to analyze the chemical composition of soils to determine if there was human settlement.

Soil Chemistry

Solifluction

The slippage of soil and rock particles due to the freezing and subsequent thawing of the earth; the process of mass movement of soil and sediment upon the thawing of water-laden ground. Many deposits in valleys and on the lower part of hills are due to the land having been glaciated, with the to...

Solifluction

Younger Dryas

A stadial of the Weichselian cold stage, dated to between 11,000-10,000 bp. The last glacial recession (13,000-6,000 years ago) was interrupted by this sharp advance. It takes its name from a tundra plant called Dryas octopetala, fossil remains of which are common in deposits of the stadial. It w...

Younger Dryas

Amsadong

A Korean Chulmun culture site near Seoul with pithouses, net weights and sinkers, querns, dating to 4490-1510 BC. It is the type-site of the Classic Chulmun pottery.

Amsadong

Desert Varnish

A chemical dark-colored crust or film of iron and manganese oxides (usually with some silica) that is deposited on exposed rocks, artifacts, and petroglyph surfaces. Of bacterial origin, this varnish becomes polished by wind abrasion can be used in cation ratio dating; its organic matter can be a...

Desert Varnish

Casual Tool

Object used as a tool once or twice for a specific purpose and discarded with no purposeful modification

EnglishTools

Casual Tool

archaeologsTools

Preaching Cross

A class of monumental sculpture unique to the British Isles, developed from the 7th century onwards. The tall, tapering cross shaft rested on a plinth or base, and carried a three-armed cross head. Both the cross and the shaft were usually ornamented with Christian figures and other decorative mo...

Preaching Cross

Pillar-Molded Bowl

Style of Roman glass bowl made by casting molten glass in a mould. Early examples are usually brightly colored, but after the 1st century AD most are a bluish-green color.

Pillar-Molded Bowl

Mckean Complex

A Middle Plains Archaic complex dating to c 5000-3000 BC and occupying parts of the northwestern Plains of North America. Its type site is in northeast Wyoming and has a McKean projectile point - a stemmed, lanceolate form.

Mckean Complex

Dingcun

Middle Palaeolithic sites in Shanxi Province, China, with human remains, flake tools, points, and stone balls. It is the type site of the culture.

Dingcun

Let

A settlement of the Early Neolithic Cris culture, the Rumanian regional variant of the First Temperate Neolithic, with later Boian and Gumelnita occupation levels. It is dated to the early 5th millennium BC, and is a rare example of a multi-level Cris site, with three occupation horizons, each ch...

Let

Lot

Any unit of collection in which artifacts are presumed to share the same particular context, typically, a level of a trench

Lot

Grimston

A Neolithic long barrow in Yorkshire, England, which is the type site of the Grimston-Lyles Hill pottery ware. The pottery is characterized by plain, round-bottomed carinated bowls with an everted rim but without handles. It was current across most of Britain c 4500-3300 BC. Some variants, as at ...

Grimston

Sisupalgarh

Iron Age city in Orissa, eastern India, with black and red ware in its earliest occupation. In the later 1st millennium BC, the city was surrounded by elaborate defensive walls and shows evidence of advanced town planning.

Sisupalgarh

Daub

Clay which is smeared onto a structure of timber or wattle (interwoven twigs) as a finish to the surface. It is normally added to both faces of a wall and is used to keep out drafts and give a smooth finish. The material usually survives only when baked or fire-hardened, as would be the case if a...

Daub

Cart

A two-wheeled vehicle drawn by a draft animal, used throughout recorded history for the transportation of goods and people. The cart, usually drawn by a single animal, was used by the Greeks and the Assyrians by 1800 BC. However, such vehicles could have been used as early as 3500 BC as an extens...

Cart

Pothunter

Any person who collects archaeological objects or excavates sites in an unscientific manner for personal gain, and whose actions result in the destruction of surrounding data. Pothunting is illegal artifact collecting.

Pothunter

K-Ar Dating

Absolute dating technique that traces the transformation of one isotope into another - potassium (K) into argon (Ar). Its range is 100,000 years to 1.3 billion years.

K-Ar Dating

Wadjet

In ancient Egypt, the cobra goddess, whose cult was associated with Lower Egyptian town of Buto, dating to Predynastic period. Wadjet and Nekhbet, the vulture-goddess of Upper Egypt, were the protective goddesses of the king and were sometimes represented together on the king's diadem, symbolizin...

Wadjet

Ballista

An ancient heavy missile launcher designed to hurl javelins or heavy balls on the principle of a crossbow. The smaller ballista was just that - a basic, large crossbow fastened to a mount. It was also used to hurl iron shafts, Greek fire, heavy darts, etc. during sieges. The huge, complicated Rom...

Ballista

Gumanye

A Late Iron Age site in southern Zimbabwe, c 1000-1100 AD. It gives its name to a facies of the Kutama tradition. It marks a clear break with the preceding Early Iron Age with the appearance of Shona people at Great Zimbabwe.

Gumanye

Piscina

In Roman architecture, a large decorated basin used as a fish pond or as a swimming bath and sunk into the floor of a room in a Roman villa. During the Middle Ages, a piscina was a pool or tank in which fish were stored by monastic communities, for whom fish was a diet staple.

Piscina

Paraskenia

In a Greek theater, the side wings of the skene - which was originally a mask-changing building and developed into an edifice decorated with columns, with three doors used for entrances and exits and the appearance of ghosts and gods.