Distinctive pottery that has been fired at a high temperature (about 1,200 C / 2,200 F) until glasslike and impervious to liquid). Usually opaque, but mainly because it is nonporous, it does not require a glaze. When a glaze is used, it is decorative only. Stoneware originated in China as early a...
Settlement near Lund in southern Sweden, dating to the Viking period. Excavations have shown that in the 9th-10th centuries this was probably the site of a fair, to which traders came. Loddekopinge expanded to a considerable size before it was superseded by Lund.
Remote sensing techniques carried out at ground level, and including bosing (or bowsing), augering, coring, Lerici periscope, resistivity detector, magnetometer, and radar techniques.
A flaking technique in which the flake scars appear from left to right diagonally across the face of an artifact.
In ancient Egyptian religion, a sacred bull of Luxor that was the incarnation of the war god Mont. Buchis was believed the principal physical manifestation (ba) or Ra and Osiris. It was represented as a white bull with black markings or by the solar disk with two tall plumes between two horns. Ac...
A Danish archaeologist who wrote "An Archaeological History from the Stone Age to the Vikings" (also published as "Danish Prehistoric Monuments" 1971; originally published in Danish 1942) "The Mound People: Danish Bronze-Age Man Preserved" (1974 reissued 1983; originally published in Danish 1970)...
A flake industry of the terraces in the Caleta Olivia and Bahia Solano region of southern Argentina. It was originally believed to be Late Pleistocene, but may actually be more recent.
Burial in northwest Kansas with 61 disarticulated individuals and Harlan cord-roughened pottery, Scallorn arrow points, hundreds of disk shell beads, and shell pendants. It belongs to the Keith Focus of the Woodland Stage and the burials are in 14+ pits.
A term describing signs that express the sounds as opposed to logographic or ideographic signs and determinatives.
Site in New South Wales, Australia, of the Panaramitee with engravings on mudstone outcrops. Radiocarbon dates are c 10,000 bp.
Romano-British pottery industry making polished and burnished black and grey wares (e.g. poppy head beakers) in the Upchurch Marshes of Kent in southeastern England.
An artifact made from a coarse, often volcanic, stone, with a groove used as a rasp to finish spears and arrowshafts. The Mousterian industry used denticulate (toothed) instruments produced by making notches in a flake, which were perhaps used as saws or shaft straighteners.
An early Pre-Classic village site located on the Pacific coastal region of Ocos in Guatemala. The site's earliest phase dates to c 1300 BC and contains Olmec or Olmec-influenced pottery, some of which has been traded to other areas of Mesoamerica. The later Conchas Phase, 800-300 BC, contains she...
An artifact consisting of a single part.
A site on the coast of northern Chile where the earliest intentionally mummified humans have been found, dating to c 7000 bp. The bodies were disemboweled, skinned, covered with clay, and clay masks were placed on the faces.
A layer of earth forming the old floor of a cave before the depositing of stalagmite. The term also describes cave deposits of shattered boulders and pebbles that occur from frost and weathering.
Vizier, sage, astrologer, and architect of the first pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Djoser (2630-2611 BC), the second king of Egypt's 3rd Dynasty. He was chief minister to Djoser and was later worshipped as the god of medicine in Egypt and Greece (Asclepius). Manetho credits him with the invention ...
Palaeolithic cave site in central Bulgaria with artifacts and faunal remains, starting with a Middle Palaeolithic assemblage of the Last Glacial, then Aurignacian and Gravettian. Another Middle Palaeolithic assemblage with bifacial foliates was discovered outside the cave.
The chief god of the Sumerian pantheon, the patron god of Nippur and most important god of the Sumerians until ousted by Marduk in the late 2nd millennium BC. His particular domain was the air, sky, and the storm ('Lord Wind'). He was the son of Anu and inherited his father's title of 'father' or...
Distinctive blade cores of Grand Pressigny (France) flint which are yellow and resemble slabs of butter.
The period of prehistory when people began to use ground stone tools, cultivate plants, and domesticate livestock but before the use of metal for tools. It is the technical name for the New Stone Age in the Old World following the Mesolithic. In the Neolithic, villages were established, pottery a...
An indicator of the extent of an area of land.
A minor thin line of deposit - one that is insignificant in relation to the major layers or levels.
A stone artifact resembling a carpenter's plumb bob, usually made of basalt, slate, or hematite. Marked by a single groove around it toward one end or the middle, was possibly a sinker for fishing or of ceremonial or ritual use.
Late Archaic tradition in northeast North America. It is characterized by stemmed projectile points and lithic assemblages.
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