Ali Kosh

Excised Decoration

Pottery decoration produced by cutting strips or shapes out of the soft clay surface before firing. The resulting hollows, notches, or cavities were often inlaid with a white paste to contrast with the dark pot surface. Incised decoration has narrow lines; excised has wide lines.

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Excised Decoration

Hominoidea

The taxonomic group that includes the human and ape members of the primates.

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Hominoidea

Global Positioning System

A satellite-based system used in determining the location of archaeological sites by triangulation from orbiting satellites. The Global Positioning System has 18 satellites, six in each of three orbital planes spaced 120? apart. The GPS is designed to provide fixes anywhere on Earth to an accurac...

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Global Positioning System

Promontory Peg

A type of carved wooden artifact, probably used as the trigger for a snare, and first recognized at the Promontory Caves, northwest of Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Promontory Peg

Guitarrero Cave

A stratified cave site of long occupation in the Callejón de Huaylas in northern Peru. It was occupied in the Preceramic period (c 12,500-6000 years ago) and continued through later ceramic periods, showing domesticated lima and common beans by c 8000 BC. A wide variety of artifacts, lithic and o...

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Guitarrero Cave

Muge

Mesolithic shell mounds (concheiros) in Portugal, dated between 7350-5150 bp (Atlantic period). There was a microlithic industry, quartzite pebbles and grindstones, and bone points and axes of red deer antlers. There are more than 230 burials - individuals with at least some Cro-Magnon characteri...

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Muge

Desert Pavement

Terrain that is thickly covered - or paved - with small rocks. Vegetation is scarce, so soil, sand, and gravel have not been held in place. Wind and rain leave only rocks too large to move. This type of terrain is part of many Southwestern US archaeological finds.

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Desert Pavement

Ossuary

A charnel house used for multiple, mainly secondary, inhumations. It was also the name for a sarcophagus of earthenware, stone, or marble, in which the vessel containing the cremated ashes of the dead was placed. It may be either a small portable article for a single interment (larnax, pithos, ur...

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Ossuary

Capital

In architecture, the feature that most readily distinguishes the Classical order: the top member of a column pier anta pilaster or other columnar form which supports a horizontal member (entablature) or arch above. A capital is usually made of wood or stone and its decoration was according to the...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Capital

Racquet Pin

Style of bronze pin shaped like a tennis racquet with a flat oval piece attached to a thin pointed shaft. Products of the early Bronze Age industrial traditions in the British Isles.

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Racquet Pin

Amapa

A site in Mexico dating from 250-700 AD, occupied again from 900-1200. Metal artifacts were produced from 900, suggesting a connection with Mesoamerican cultures at the time.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Amapa

Lalibela

A religious and pilgrimage center of north-central Ethiopia, capital of the Zague dynasty for about 300 years. It was renamed for its emperor, Lalibela (reigned c 1185-1225), who according to tradition built the 11 monolithic churches for which the location is famous. The churches were hewn out o...

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Lalibela

Pizarro, Francisco

Spanish explorer and adventurer who came to Peru in 1532 looking for gold and destroyed the Inca empire. The Inca wrongly believed the Spaniards to be gods returning as prophesied in legends. He founded Lima.

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Pizarro, Francisco

Exchange System

Any system for exchanging goods and services between individuals and/or societies. This term also refers to the trade or transfer of ideas.

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Exchange System

Dálriada

A kingdom founded by Fergus and his brothers when they led the Scots from Ireland to the northeast coast of Scotland in the 5th century AD, roughly the modern county of Argyll (Argyllshire). It was ruled from the rock fortress of Dunadd, a nucleated fortified citadel dating to around 500. It cons...

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Dálriada

Arrow Straightener

A stone with a regular, straight groove on one face. It is thought to have been used to smooth wooden shafts of arrows, so the name is misleading.

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Arrow Straightener

Crypt

A vault or subterranean chamber, especially one beneath the main floor of a church or other building and used as a burial place. In the catacombs, it was a tomb in which a number of bodies were interred together. Early Christians called their catacombs crypts; and, when churches came to be erecte...

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Crypt

Pech Merle

Cave site in Quercy, France, with Palaeolithic paintings and engravings of three phases from 20,000-10,000 BC. It was not inhabited but there are animal figures, dots, and signs.

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Pech Merle

Friability

The ability of something to be crumbled

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Friability

Hellespont

The former name of the Dardanelles, the narrow strait in northwestern Turkey, linking the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara. This narrow sea channel divides Europe from Asia Minor at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean. The strait holds a significant place in history. Both Troy and Byzanti...

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Hellespont

Wrought Nail

A nail that is beaten out or shaped by hammering.

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Wrought Nail

Frere, John

A British antiquary who first recognized the antiquity of Palaeolithic flint artifacts. His flint weapon finds in the Hoxne brick-earth pit in Suffolk in association with bones of extinct mammals in an undisturbed deep stratum was reported in 1797. Frere recognized that the implements were man-ma...

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Frere, John

Seleucid Empire

A dynasty founded in Syria by one of the generals of Alexander the Great who was his principal successor in the east. This empire of Greek rulers descended from Seleucus I (c 358-281 BC) who founded the dynasty after the death of his leader. From the 4th-1st centuries BC the Seleucid dynasty rule...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Seleucid Empire

Manching

Large oppidum of the late Iron Age in Bavaria, Germany, near Ingolstadt, dated to the La Tène period c 200 BC. It was one of the largest oppida in Europe. Manching, at that time adjacent to the Danube, may have been a regional market. The defense was an elaborate construction consisting of four-m...

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Manching

Tirimoana Pa

Earthwork hillfort on Hawkes Bay, North Island, New Zealand, with early storage pits for sweet potatoes dated to c1000 AD. This is evidence that Maoris grew sweet potatoes form initial settlement of New Zealand. The main ditch and bank defenses with palisades were built between 1400-1600.

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