Cup-And-Ring Mark

Hopewell

An agricultural subculture of the Woodland Stage Complex settling in Ohio and Illinois around 100 BC and lasting to 500 AD. It was one of the most advanced Indian cultures of North America, with conical or dome-shaped burial mounds, large enclosures with earthen walls, and fine pottery with corde...

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Hopewell

Inca Pirca

A site in Ecuador with a unique oval platform faced with cut stone. On its summit was a gable-roofed building. It may have had a religious use or could have been a castle or guardhouse.

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Inca Pirca

Rudna Glava

The site of a Late Vinca copper mine, in the limestone hills of northeastern Serbia. The mine, dated to the early 4th millennium BC, employed a mining technique involving the construction of platforms on the steep hillside and follow the vertical veins of malachite down, thereby creating empty 's...

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Rudna Glava

Molfetta

Middle Neolithic settlement on the Italian Adriatic coast near Puglie, Italy - in the 'Pulo di Molfetta' - by an enormous collapsed cave. A Neolithic village and cemetery beside this provide a type site for the south Italian impressed ware, for which radiocarbon dates around 5200 BC have been obt...

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Molfetta

Secondary Burial

The practice of removing the remains of a corpse to another grave or ossuary which were initially buried or put elsewhere.

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Secondary Burial

Tanutamon

Last of the 25th Dynasty pharaohs, successor of Taharqa, who led an invasion of Lower Egypt and captured Memphis. He defeated and killed the Assyrian-backed Saite ruler Nekau I in 664 BC. In 663 BC, the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal drove Tanutamon out, sacking Thebes.

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Tanutamon

Monoporate

A grain of pollen with one pore, as with grass.

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Monoporate

Reservoir Effect

The result of organisms taking in carbon from a source that is depleted of or enriched in carbon-14 relative to the atmosphere, with samples returning ages that are considerably older or younger than actual age

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Reservoir Effect

Plumbate Ware

A fine pottery made on the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica, near the Mexico-Guatemala border, during early Post-Classic and Pre-Columbian times. It was traded over a wide area, from Nayarit in northwest Mexico to Costa Rica in the south, and was present in all but the lowest levels in the Toltec cen...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Plumbate Ware

Tanum

Site of prehistoric rock art in Bohuslän, Sweden. The carved designs, hällristningar, are pecked on glacially smooth rock surfaces, especially oared ships. Tanum art is mainly from the later Bronze Age. Ancient burial grounds attest to the existence of Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age settlements in B...

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Tanum

Pleistocene Series

A division of the Quaternary System defined by its deposits. It is a worldwide division of rocks deposited during the Pleistocene Epoch (1,600,000-10,000 years ago). It overlies rocks from the Pliocene Epoch (5.3-1.6 million years ago) and is itself overlain by rocks of the Holocene Series; toget...

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Pleistocene Series

Onuris

An Egyptian deity associated with war and hunting, whose name means 'he who brings back the distant one', referring to his principal mythical role in which he returned from Nubia with his consort, the lioness-goddess Mehit.

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Onuris

Basal Stones

The lowest stones in the continuous face of a wall.

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Basal Stones

Road

A traveled way on which people, animals, or wheeled vehicles move. The earliest roads developed from the paths and trails of prehistoric peoples; their construction was concurrent with the appearance of wheeled vehicles, which was probably in the area between the Caucasus Mountains and the Persia...

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Road

Plano

Widespread late Palaeoindian tradition in North America from 10,000-7000 BP. In the west, it is characterized by bison hunting and diverse projectile point styles; complexes include Agate Basin, Hell Gap, Cody, and Frederick. The characteristic unfluted leaf-shaped projectile point appears to hav...

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Plano

Erimi

A deeply stratified site in southern Cyprus, which has produced evidence of a sequence of pottery styles covering most of the 4th millennium BC. It is the type site for the Chalcolithic I Erimi culture, characterized by red-on-white pottery. The houses were first cut into rock, but later were cir...

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Erimi

Spondylus Gaederopus

Mediterranean mussel shell from which ornaments (bracelets, beads, disks) were made, found all across the Balkans, up the Danube Valley, and even on the Saale and the Main. It was traded for this purpose into central Europe in the Early Neolithic. Spondylus shell ornaments occurred in contexts of...

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Spondylus Gaederopus

Macehead

The stone or metal top of a mace, usually perforated. In 1968 Fiona Roe published a classification of British late Neolithic stone maceheads, recognizing five main groups: ovoid; Maesmore group; flint nodule type; Thames pestle; and Orkney pestle.

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Macehead

Deposited Assemblage

Set of carcasses or body parts deposited on a site.

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Deposited Assemblage

Cross-Dating

A correlation dating technique that can yield a relative or absolute age or chronology. The basis of cross-dating is the occurrence of finds in association. The assumption is that a particular type of artifact, for example a type of sword, when found in an undated context will bear a similar date...

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Cross-Dating

Samos

Greek island in the Aegean just off mainland western Asia Minor. There is evidence of Early Neolithic occupancy on the south coast, near Tigáni. About the 11th century BC, the Ionians appeared and by the 7th century BC the island was one of the leading commercial centers of Greece. The tyrant Pol...

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Samos

Plant Macrofossil

Preserved or carbonized plant parts recovered from archaeological sites and large enough to be observed without a microscope.

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Plant Macrofossil

Comet

A celestial body moving around the Sun in an elliptical orbit and often seen as a starlike nucleus with a train of light or 'tail' following it. Comets were often mentioned in ancient records, as in the Bayeux Tapestry. Their occurrences can be calculated by astronomers, as can eclipses, and anci...

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Comet

Technomic

A category of material culture inferred to have served principally technological ends, such as cutting or piercing.

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Technomic

Metaponto

Greek colony in southern Italy with Hippodamian planning. Two temples of the Doric order may have been for Hera and Apollo Lycaeus.

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