Isle Royale

Pantalica

A Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age site inland from Syracuse in southeast Sicily, occupied c 13th-8th centuries BC. The 5,000 rock-cut tombs which honeycomb the hillside around have yielded great quantities of material. Pottery and metal goods from the tombs indicate trading contacts with both m...

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Pantalica

Peterson Index

An estimate of the number of individuals that originally belonged in a faunal population on the basis of surviving paired elements in a sample.

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Peterson Index

Profile

A vertical wall, section, or face of an excavation pit that exposes the lateral relationships, archaeological features, structures, stratigraphy - and their relationships. By extension, a profile is a record or graphic representation of these, including color, soil type, features, and content. So...

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Profile

Britannia Metal

A silvery alloy consisting of tin with about 5-15 per cent antimony and usually some copper, lead, or zinc.

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Britannia Metal

Core Rejuvenation Flake

A roughly round slightly wedge-shaped flake of flint with the remains of flake beds around the outside edge. Such flakes are the product of extending the life of a core that has become uneven or difficult to work but which still has the potential to yield further blades.

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Core Rejuvenation Flake

Living Archaeology

The study of the living patterns of existing hunter-gatherer and farming societies whose traditions extend from ancient predecessors, such as the Australian aborigines.

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Living Archaeology

Bacsonian

An early Holocene stone tool industry (c 8000-4000 BC) of Indochina (esp. northern Vietnam). It is often regarded as a variant of the Hoabinhian industry of Southeast Asia. The Bacsonian industry is characterized by edge-ground pebble tools, ground-stone axes and adzes, and some sites have cord- ...

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Bacsonian

Nitra

A fortified site where excavations have revealed traces of the 9th-century stronghold and a large cemetery of the Linear Pottery culture of southern Slovakia. Within Nitra's walls there were workshops producing relics and metalwork that were distributed to other Slavic sites. The cemetery's artif...

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Nitra

Heqin

A system of reverse tribute used in the Han Dynasty of China. Lavish goods were given as a reward for voluntary tributes and loyalty to the Han.

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Heqin

Parodos

In Greek theater, the chorus entrance. In the earliest times, the actors and the chorus entered together from this main approach.

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Parodos

Mckean Point

Bifacially worked chipped stone projectile points characteristic of the McKean Complex of the middle Archaic Stage in the Great Plains of North America during the period c.2900-1000 BC. Lanceolate in outline with curved sides and a hollow base these points were probably spearheads used in bison h...

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Mckean Point

Manetho

An Egyptian priest and historian who wrote a history of his country in the 3rd century BC. Though the work is lost, quotations from it in later writings are extremely important for reconstructing the dynastic lists of the pharaohs. The history was probably written in Greek for Ptolemy I (305-282)...

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Manetho

Grauballe Man

A Danish bog burial in central Jutland of the Roman Iron Age with a radiocarbon date c 310 AD. Grauballe Man was naked and his neck had been cut almost from ear to ear. His skin was particularly well-preserved by the peat. His last meal had consisted of a gruel made of 63 different types of ident...

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Grauballe Man

Huai Yai

A site in central Thailand that was a center of copper and bronze production in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. It was also a center for making polished stone adzes and stone bracelets.

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Huai Yai

Gutta

A series of peglike features, shaped like a frustrum of a cone, on the underside of mutules and triglyphs on classical buildings of the Doric order.

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Gutta

Gladius

Latin term for a short sword used by Roman legionaries.

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Gladius

Mapping

The scaled recording of the horizontal position of exposed features and, in some cases, artifacts and ecofacts, using standardized symbols. It is one of the two basic ground survey methods used in surface survey of archaeological sites, the other being surface collection.

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Mapping

Wedge-Shaped Microcore

A core that is small and keel- or wedge-shaped and used to make microblades. They have been found in East Europe, Siberia, Mongolia, northern China, Alaska, northwestern North America, and Japan on Upper Palaeolithic sites from the close of the Pleistocene.

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Wedge-Shaped Microcore

Serekh

Hieroglyphic symbol comprising the recessed paneling described in modern times as 'palace facade' decoration. It is the image of a brick facade to a palace or enclosure, with a rectangular space above. It is believed to have been modeled on the design of the earliest royal residences beginning in...

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Serekh

Firestarter

A wood tool having a base with drilled holes and a stick that is rubbed through the holes in the base to produce enough friction to give a spark.

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Firestarter

Climate

The condition of the atmosphere at a particular location over a long period of time; the sum of the atmospheric elements that, over short time periods, make up weather. These elements are solar radiation, temperature, humidity, precipitation (type, frequency, and amount), atmospheric pressure, an...

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Climate

Ahar

A site in Rajasthan, western India, belonging to the Chalcolithic Banas culture and dated c. 2500-1500 BC. The people cultivated cereal crop, hunted deer, used copper and a variety of pottery, including Black and Red Ware. A second period of occupation later in the 1st millennium BC used Northern...

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Ahar

Cut Mark

Any microscopic scratches on the surface of an animal bone, with distinctive V-shaped grooves. The marks indicate meat and muscle were removed from the bone using stone flakes.

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Cut Mark

Jolly

To form ceramic hollowware by a machine similar to a jigger, but the rotating mold forms the outside while a profile forms the interior

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Jolly

Calibration

A method used to obtain the most accurate dating, especially with radiocarbon dating. The term refers to the adjustment of dates in radiocarbon years by means of the dendrochronological data so that a date in calendar years is achieved. Fluctuations in the amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere me...

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