Categories - Archaeologs

Vertical Exposure

Excavation of a site to reveal its vertical extent, with relatively little breadth. This type of excavation is undertaken to establish a chronological sequence, normally covering a limited area.

Vertical Exposure

Brad

A flat nail of the same thickness that tapers in width to a point.

Brad

Clasp

A device with interlocking parts for fastening; also, a buckle or brooch

Clasp

Flint Creek Flaking

A characteristic flaking style of the Flint Creek culture which was accomplished by removing regular, deep, elongate, opposing pressure flakes from the blade edges. The application of this flaking style usually resulted in the formation of very fine biface serrations.

Flint Creek Flaking

Utilized Material

Pieces of stone that have been used without modification.

Utilized Material

Cambium

A viscid substance lying under the bark of trees, consisting of cellular tissue in which the annual growth of wood and bark takes place.

Cambium

Radial Fissure

Tiny fracture lines that sometimes radiate away from the point of percussion around the bulb on the ventral surface of a lithic flake.

Radial Fissure

Israelites

A branch of Semitic people of nomadic origin who emerged in the Levant at the start of the Iron Age, c 1200 BC. This emergence is identified with a shift of settlement, small villages dispersed in upland regions replacing urban life. They are said to have been led by Moses from Egypt to the Promi...

EnglishNations

Israelites

archaeologsNations

Section

In excavation, the exposing of a deposit vertically to reveal the stratigraphy of a site or details of a particular feature. A balk is left across a feature or a complex of features, or a hole is cut out of a feature and trimmed to a flat face in which layers and changes in soil color may be exam...

Section

Frying Pan

A term used to describe any shallow circular vessel or bowl with a decorated base found in the Early Bronze Age of the Cyclades, especially the Cycladic Grotta-Pelos and Keros-Syros cultures. Made of clay, the handle was split into two knob-like projections and the stamped or incised decoration o...

Frying Pan

Collaring

A part of wheel-throwing a vessel that involves using both hands to apply inward pressure on the rotating body to narrow it and form a neck or closure.

Collaring

Phoneme

In linguistics, a term for a unit of speech which is recognized as significant in a particular language. It is the smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word (or word element) from another, as the sound p in cap which separates that word from "cab" and "can." In Chinese speakers hear and use...

Phoneme

Purposive Sample

A sample selected on the basis of experience and judgment rather than probability theory.

Purposive Sample

La Mouillah Point

A point like a piquant-triedre except that it is backed and the tip then twisted off so the microburin scar forms an extended point

La Mouillah Point

Denbigh Flint Complex

An Arctic Small Tool Tradition flint industry found at Cape Denbigh, Iyatayet, Cape Krusenstern, Onion Portage, and other Alaskan sites. The typical artifacts are finely worked microblade tools (bladelets, small crescents), burins, and bifacially pressure-flaked points. The Denbigh complex had de...

Denbigh Flint Complex

Color-Coated Ware

A way of referring to many kinds of pottery in the Greek and Roman periods which were given an extra surface coating, usually slightly glossy and most often red. Research suggests that the coating was made from fine clay particles suspended in water with a peptizing agent added.

archaeologsAncient Pottery

EnglishAncient Pottery

Color-Coated Ware

Nubia

That area south of ancient Egypt proper which extends from the Nile Valley from Aswan and the first cataract as far south as the Khartoum district in the Sudan, east to the Red Sea and west to the Libyan Desert. It was conventionally divided into Upper and Lower Nubia. Most of the Egyptian sectio...

Nubia

Landnam

A Danish word meaning 'land taking', used to describe a common form of early agriculture in which an area of woodland was cleared and cultivated (which has been identified in the pollen record). The land was later abandoned and was taken over by weeds, finally reverting to woodland. Its regenerat...

Landnam

Bouard, Michel De

A French archaeologist who worked in medieval studies, especially on earthworks as fortifications. Bouärd also investigated ceramics and other aspects of medieval material culture and made advances in archaeological laboratory research.

Bouard, Michel De

Patera

In Roman antiquity, a rounded bowl, often of bronze, usually with a long handle and used for pouring libations. The dish was also used in sacrifices.

EnglishAncient Pottery, Tools

Patera

archaeologsAncient Pottery, Tools

Crvena Stijena

A prehistoric cave site near the Adriatic coast in Montenegro. Artifacts and faunal remains date back to the last glaciation and deposits include the Palaeolithic, Mousterian, Upper Palaeolithic (Aurignacian), Early and Late Mesolithic (with microlithic flint industries and a large faunal sample ...

Crvena Stijena

Salt-Glazed Stoneware

In the 14th century AD it was found that the addition of salt to the kiln gases during the firing of stoneware meant that the salt volatilized and the resultant sodium chloride vapor fluxed with the silicas in the body of the vessels to form a soda-glass glaze. As a further refinement, a brown-co...

archaeologsAncient Pottery

EnglishAncient Pottery

Salt-Glazed Stoneware

Eburran

An East African obsidian industry of the central Rift Valley, Kenya, previously known as the 'Kenya Capsian' and before that as the 'Kenya Aurignacian'. Its time span is the 13th-8th millennia BC. The assemblages, as recovered from Gamble's Cave and Nderit Drift, comprise large backed blades, cre...

Eburran

Moai

Colossal stone figure found on Easter Island carved between c 600-1500 AD. There are 800-1000 known quarried from the volcanic tuff at Rano Raraku. They can be up to 10 meters tall and weigh 28 tons. Many were put in ahu on the coast, on top and facing inland. The moai were probably ancestor figu...

Moai

Futhark

The writing system of uncertain origin used by Germanic peoples of northern Europe, Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland from about the 3rd century to the 16th or 17th century AD. Runic writing appeared rather late in the history of writing and is clearly derived from one of the alphabets of the Med...