Categories - Archaeologs

Caiman

Reptile related to the alligator but smaller and slimmer and with a proportionally longer tai

Caiman

Villa

In Roman architecture, the name of a farm or country house or a farming residence with luxurious private, urban, and humble rural dwellings. In the Roman context, the farmstead had ancillary buildings and one main residential structure. In a Minoan context, a villa was a rural residence with some...

Villa

Graziosi, Paolo

An Italian archaeologist who concentrated on rock art studies in Italian and North African excavations. He discovered the art at Levanzo and published "L'Arte dell'Antica Eta della Pietra" (1956).

Graziosi, Paolo

Sitio Conte

A Panamanian site, in Coclé province, occupied from 200-1300 AD. Its cemetery, used 500-900, had some 60 tombs filled with gold regalia, tools and weapons, ornaments of carved stone or bone, and thousands of pots, some painted in several colors. All these items were decorated with elaborate scrol...

Sitio Conte

Brauron

The temenos of the goddess Artemis Brauronia in Attica, Greece. There are remains of a Doric temple and stoa with dining rooms.

Brauron

Isostasy

An alteration in the height of the land relative to the sea; the distribution of mass within the Earth's crust is balanced by large-scale topography. These variations are not necessarily associated with changes in sea-level (eustasy), but a major event such as glaciation can affect both land and ...

Isostasy

Palermo Stone

A slab of black basalt bearing a record of the first five Egyptian dynasties (Old Kingdom), compiled in the 5th dynasty, c 2400 BC. It is one of the basic sources of information about the chronology and cultural history of Egypt during the first five dynasties (c 2925-c. 2325 BC). Named for the S...

Palermo Stone

Cuvier, Georges

French zoologist who was the founder of comparative anatomy and paleontology. He was an expert on fossil bones and one of the most influential proponents of catastrophism. Although Cuvier's theory of catastrophism did not last he based the science of palaeontology on a firm empirical foundation. ...

Cuvier, Georges

Schliemann, Heinrich

German businessman and archaeologist who discovered and excavated Troy, Tiryns, Mycenae, and Ithaca. Retiring from business a wealthy man at 41, he sought to identify Homer's Troy. He did so, on a site overlooking the Dardanelles with nine superimposed cities containing a startling wealth of mate...

Schliemann, Heinrich

Ditch

A common feature of archaeological sites in association with defensive structures, as a means of drainage, or as a construction trench. A ditch was usually dug outside the walls of forts, fortresses and so on, as part of the defenses, and was often filled with water. Ditches which are allowed to ...

Ditch

Penknife Point

Type of late Upper Palaeolithic flint tool found in northwest Europe. Made on fairly broad blades, these tools are characterized by a straight unworked edge along one side, a curved distal end, and a lightly retouched edge parallel to the unworked side.

Penknife Point

Great Wall Of China

A monumental building project which created a wall running (with all its branches) about 4,000 miles (6,400 km) west to east from Bohai Bay to a point deep in central Asia, the Tarim Basin. Parts of the vast fortification date from the 4th century BC. In 214 BC, the first emperor of a united Chin...

EnglishArchitectural, Place Names

Great Wall Of China

archaeologsArchitectural, Place Names

Barche Di Solferino

A Bronze Age Polada culture settlement on Lake Garda, northern Italy, dating to the 2nd millennium BC. Finds include wooden vessels, wheels, and a dugout canoe - all preserved by the mud. The houses were raised off the ground with timbers.

Barche Di Solferino

Penetrating Excavation

An excavating technique that exposes the vertical face of a site. This type of excavation is designed to reveal the vertical and temporal dimensions within an archaeological deposit - the depth, sequence, and composition of buried data.

Penetrating Excavation

Chedworth

A site in Cotswold, southern England, with the ruins of a large Roman villa, one of the best-preserved in Britain. The villa was typical of the last years of the Roman occupation. Three phases have been found, c 100-150 AD, early 3rd century, and early 4th century.

EnglishPlace Names

Chedworth

archaeologsPlace Names

Processual Question

Any question that assumes a location's culture-history is known and asks about the processes of cultural stability and change over time.

Processual Question

Tula

The Toltec capital, located in the modern state of Hidalgo, Mexico, then identified as Tollán. Founded on an already existing settlement in c 960 AD, it grew to cover 11 sq. km. The site gained importance c 800 AD after Teotihuacán fell. There was a stepped pyramid on which there was a temple and...

Tula

Chün Ware

A Chinese stoneware of the Northern Sung period (960-1126 AD) with a pale blue opalescent or translucent green glaze, at the kilns near Lin-ju-hsien and at Kung-hsien in Honan province in China. Another well-known class has a red or flambé glaze and consists of flowerpots, bulb bowls, elegant sha...

archaeologsAncient Pottery

EnglishAncient Pottery

Chün Ware

Biostratigraphic Unit

Division of the Earth's crust defined by its fossil content.

Biostratigraphic Unit

Horse Bit

A metal mouthpiece on a bridle, used to control a horse

EnglishTools

Horse Bit

archaeologsTools

Kiev

An important medieval Russian city, capital of the Ukraine, on the eastern bank of the Dnepr River. In the 10th century, small hamlets were built with sunken-floored workshops, merchant houses, and artisans' dwellings. A fortified town with churches and palaces grew through the 11th centuries. Ki...

Kiev

Ore

A mineral or mineral aggregate containing a prized constituent, usually a metal, for which it is mined and worked.

Ore

Gibraltar

A promontory on the southern tip of Spain known for its cave sites with remains of Neanderthal man and stone tools of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. The first Neanderthal skull ever found came from Forbes Quarry in 1848. A second, juvenile, Neanderthal was found in 1926 at Devil's Tower. The ...

Gibraltar

Pattern

Any design with regularly repeated parts

Pattern

Jinniushan

Early and Late Palaeolithic site in Liaoning Province, China, with scrapers, bipolar flakes, and Homo sapiens remains.