Sai

Phaistos Disk

A unique clay disk with stamped inscriptions in a spiral on each face of its 16 cm diameter, found in 1908 at Phaistos, Crete. It is made of baked clay and on either side is an inscription, which consists of signs impressed on the wet clay with a punch or stamp. The Phaistos disk is therefore the...

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Phaistos Disk

Ecology

The study of entire assemblages of living organisms and their physical milieus, which together constitute an integrated system. In archaeology, ecology seeks to reconstruct the past environment of man and his impact upon it. The term encompasses the relationship of plants and animals with their e...

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Ecology

Archaic Maiolica

A series of jugs and bowls of the early 13th to late 16th centuries in Tuscan and Italian towns. They were decorated with geometric motifs, leaves, and other forms outlined in brown and set into green or brown backgrounds. They were sold as far as Spain, North Africa, and northern Europe. There s...

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Archaic Maiolica

Norms

Shared rules that define the kind of behavior people are supposed to have under given conditions or circumstances.

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Norms

Jhukar

A site in Sindh, Pakistan, lending its name to a Late Harappan culture of Chalcolithic times (2nd millennium BC). The culture, which succeeded the Indus Civilization on certain sites in Sindh (type site of Chanhu-daro; Amri) has material showing a mixture of elements from the Indus, Baluchistan, ...

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Jhukar

Sidescan Sonar

A survey method used in underwater archaeology which provides the broadest view of the sea-floor and its texture. An acoustic emitter is towed behind a vessel and sends out sound waves in a fan-shaped beam. These pulses of sonic energy are reflected back to a transducer and recorded on a rotating...

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Sidescan Sonar

Ban Kao

A burial site in western Thailand which spanned 2500-1600 BC. There is elaborately shaped unpainted pottery with a range of bone, shell, and stone artifacts.

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Ban Kao

Sweat House

Special building for taking sweat-baths (cleansing one's body by sweating), a common native Californian institution. There was a fire area for heating stones; water would then be poured over the stones to produce steam. They doubled as community centers for prayers and other religious activities.

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Sweat House

Xerophyte

A plant adapted to a very dry climate or habitat.

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Xerophyte

Lausitz

A northeasterly group of the European Urnfield cultures, occurring in East Germany, Poland, and parts of Czechoslovakia, which emerged c 1500 BC and survived well into the Iron Age c 300 BC. Fortified settlements occur, seen in the well-preserved site at Biskupin. The dead were cremated and place...

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Lausitz

Eden Point

Eden points are known for their exceptionally well done parallel pressure flaking and diamond cross-section. The people that made them were hunting large animals like bison. Eden points were first discovered in Yuma County, Colorado blow-outs during the 1930's but none were found in situ until th...

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Eden Point

Silex

A flint or flint stone, often, any kind of hard stone hewn into polygonal blocks. Technically, it is silica or a siliceous material.

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Silex

Marking

Notations on tokens and envelopes. Some of the envelopes have markings corresponding to the clay shapes inside. Moreover, these markings are more or less similar to the shapes drawn on clay tablets that date back to about 3100 BC and that are unambiguously related to the Sumerian language. These ...

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Marking

Trenching

An excavation technique in which a site is penetrated with long, narrow trenches that reveal the vertical dimension of the area and to explore the horizontal dimension along one axis.

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Trenching

Numerical Taxonomy

A set of mathematical procedures for grouping individual items into classes. The technique used is cluster analysis, which produces groupings of items based on their degree of similarity. There are different ways of measuring the similarity between items, and different techniques of producing clu...

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Numerical Taxonomy

Lower-Order Central Place

A small and functionally simple community in a regional hierarchy of communities differentiated by number, size, and function.

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Lower-Order Central Place

Fayyum, Al-

A large fertile depression in the Libyan Desert, southwest of Cairo near the west bank of the Nile, with two prehistoric cultures dating to c 5000 BC and c 4500 BC. These early settlements were of the first food-producing peoples of Egypt. Emmer and barley were cultivated and cattle, sheep, and p...

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Fayyum, Al-

Navdatoli

Important prehistoric site on the Narbada River of central India, made up of four separate mounds, with Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, Chalcolithic, Iron Age, and medieval occupations. The Chalcolithic, dated to the 2nd millennium BC, had four phases with a painted black-and-red ware and black-pa...

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Navdatoli

Eocene

A major geological epoch of the earth's history - the second division of the Tertiary Period (Cenozoic Era) that began about 57.8 million years ago and ended about 36.6 million years ago. It follows the Paleocene Epoch and precedes the Oligocene Epoch. The Eocene is often divided into Early (57.8...

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Eocene

Yasumiba

Late Palaeolithic site in Shizuoka prefecture, Honshu, Japan, with hearths dated c 14,300 years ago. Over four hundred microblades made from conical cores were found.

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Yasumiba

Bernam-Sungkai

A peninsular area of Malaysia with stone slab graves during a metal age around 300 BC.

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Bernam-Sungkai

Li

A cooking vessel common in the Chinese Neolithic and Bronze Ages in both pottery and bronze. It is a small tripod bowl with hollow legs, characteristic of the Henan and Shaanxi Longshan cultures (Hougang II, Kexingzhuang II) that in Shang and Chou times was copied in bronze. The Xian steamer was ...

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Li

Kota Batu

The capital of the Muslim Sultanate of Brunei in northern Borneo, dating from the 10th-13th centuries AD. There was a defended palace and sumptuous court and large quantities of imported Chinese and Thai pottery dating from about 1380-1580. The palace was on the bank of the Brunei River and most ...

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Kota Batu

Shouldered Point

Type of stone point made on a blade, with a notch on one side of the base and flaked partly or wholly on both sides. Shouldered points are characteristic of some Upper Palaeolithic cultures of Europe, such as the Solutrean, Magdalenian, and Eastern Gravettian.

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Shouldered Point

Shoeing Nail

A nail of distinctive form, specifically used in the shoeing of animals, e.g. horses, donkeys, oxen.

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