Hanging Grimston

A long barrow on Yorkshire Wolds, England of the British Earlier Neolithic of the 4th millennium BC. It gave its name to the Grimston-Lyles Hill pottery whose characteristic vessel was the round-based carinated bowl with everted rim.

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Hanging Grimston

Dynastic Period

A period of ancient Egypt's history tied to a framework of 30 dynasties (ruling houses) of kings, or pharaohs, who rule from the time of the country's unification into a single kingdom in c 3100 BC until its conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. The two Predynastic kingdoms of Upper and Lowe...

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Dynastic Period

Forum

The administrative center and marketplace of a Roman town, usually placed at the intersection of the main streets, the decumanus and cardo. The square served as a meeting- and/or market-place; it answered the Greek agora. Public notices were displayed on the basilica. Inside the basilica, the cou...

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Forum

Regional Sequence

A chronological series of phases within the limits of a region, arrived at by correlating (not combining or conflating) local sequences.

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Regional Sequence

Alcalà

A cemetery in southern Portugal containing corbel-vaulted tombs of megalithic tradition from the early metal ages. Like Los Millares, it was once thought to be an Aegean colony.

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Alcalà

White-Ground

Athenian pottery technique, especially of the 5th century BC, where white slip was applied to the vessel surface and the decoration painted on that. The white-ground lekythoi - funerary vases with the figures painted in color against a white background - are the most common shapes employing this ...

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White-Ground

Sache

Mayan term for a raised causeway made of stone blocks and paved with gravel and plaster.

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Sache

Dian Kingdom

A Bronze Age culture and barbarian kingdom in southwest China centered on Lake Dian in Yunnan province. According to Chinese sources, the Dian royal house traced its descent from a Chu general who invaded Yunnan in the late 4th century BC and remained to rule the local tribes. In 109 BC, Dian sur...

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Dian Kingdom

Domus De Janas

The Sardinian name for a kind of rock-cut chamber tomb, often with many interconnecting rooms, found on the island from the Copper Age and Early Bronze Age. The term means 'house of the fairies' and describes often complex, multi-chambered tombs.

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Domus De Janas

Oc-Eo

Protohistoric site in southern Vietnam in the Mekong Delta, thought to have been the main port of the kingdom of Funan, built on a Neolithic site. This port settlement, which flourished amid a complex of other settlements connected by canals, was not only an extraordinarily rich emporium dealing ...

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Oc-Eo

Argissa

An important Neolithic site in Thessaly, northern Greece, which has given much information on the early phases of the Greek Aceramic Neolithic period. In the Argissa Magula near Larissa, there have been early prepottery Neolithic finds of probably the 6th millennium BC. Timber-framed huts consist...

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Argissa

Zlota

Settlement and cemetery site of the Neolithic-Copper Age in southern Poland and a culture of the same name. The dead, laid in a contracted position on stone pavements in simple graves, were accompanied by pots whose shape and cord ornament suggest links with the globular amphora and corded ware c...

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Zlota

Ondratice

Middle Palaeolithic sites northeast of Brno in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. There are endscrapers and sidescrapers of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic types.

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Ondratice

Eluvial Horizon

A soil horizon from which minerals, humus, or plant nutrients have been lost. It has lost the material in solution or suspension by pedogenesic processes. The most common eluvial horizon is E.

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Eluvial Horizon

Aperture Pattern

Any open space or pattern of open spaces between the portions of solid matter on pollens that can be used to distinguish pollen classes.

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Aperture Pattern

Meare

A lakeside village of the Iron Age on the Somerset Levels in southwest England with groups of mounds similar to those at nearby Glastonbury. The settlement consisted of about 40 round houses built on desiccated peat and with timber and brushwood floors. It was surrounded by a palisade and occupie...

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Meare

Coedès, George

A French scholar of classical Southeast Asia who spent most of his career in Indochina and Siam. He is best known for "Angkor: An Introduction" (1963; reissued 1986). He published more than 300 papers and discovered the Indonesian empire of Srivijava in 1918.

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Coedès, George

Psusennes

Birth name taken by two kings of the 21st Dynasty, who ruled from Tanis in the Delta at the start of the Third Intermediate Period: Psusennes I Aakheperra Setepenamun (ruled c 1045-c 997 BC) and Psusennes II Titkheperura Setepenra (ruled c 964-c 950 BC).

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Psusennes

Lateral

Positioned away from the midline, to the left or right.

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Lateral

Yoke

Large, heavy U-shaped stone believed to be a ritual copy of a wooden protector worn by players of the Mesoamerican ball game during the Classic period. It was worn on the hips and decorated with carved designs with double-edge scrolls. The term is also used for the wooden crosspiece fastened over...

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Yoke

Knowth

One of the largest Neolithic burial grounds on the River Boyne in County Meath, Ireland. It is a circular burial mound containing two passage graves entered from opposite sides. The first is a large but simple passage grave, with several decorated stones but no evidence of corbelling. The second ...

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Knowth

Amerind

An abbreviated term for American Indian, used to distinguish American aborigines from inhabitants of India.

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Amerind

Gandhara

A culture of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC in the valleys of northwestern Pakistan - and the Achaemenid (Persian) satrapy of this name. This culture was important in passing Persian ideas on to the civilizations of the Ganges valley. It also introduced Hellenistic art styles to India. Western infl...

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Gandhara

Brythons

A combination of Nordic and Alpine peoples who arrived in southeast England about 550 BC. They introduced iron and gave their name to Britain. During the Roman occupation, England was inhabited by Celtic Brythons, but the Celts withdrew before the Teutonic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes into the mount...

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Brythons

Solo Man

Advanced hominid, Homo erectus soloensis, found at Ngandong and Sambungmacan in the Solo river valley of Java. More archaic than European Neanderthals, it may be later than Peking Man. There were 11 fossil skulls (without facial skeletons) and 2 leg-bone fragments recovered from terraces. Solo ma...

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Solo Man