Five Dynasties Period

In Chinese history, period of time between the fall of the T'ang dynasty (AD 907) and the founding of the Sung (Song) dynasty (960), when five would-be dynasties followed one another in quick succession in North China. The era coincides with the Ten Kingdoms - the 10 regimes which dominated separ...

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Five Dynasties Period

Alluvium

The detrital material (clay, gravel, organic material, sand, silt, soil) eroded, transported, and deposited by rivers and streams. It is very fertile and was used by early farmers. Though the largest areas of alluvium are flood plains and deltas, it may also occur where a river overflows its bank...

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Alluvium

Togolok

Late Bronze Age sites in the Murghab delta, Turkmenia, with a material culture similar to the Bactrian Late Bronze Age. Togolok is also a chronological phase, c 2nd quarter 2nd millennium BC, with continuity to the preceding Gonur phase.

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Togolok

Culture History

A history of the cultures that inhabited a particular location or region.

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Culture History

Early Lithic

A term applied to the earliest stage in New World history, when man first appeared and started hunting and gathering. The period is characterized by large projectile points and percussion-chipped stone tools suitable for the slaughter and butchering of big game.

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Early Lithic

Sub-Bottom Profiler

An underwater survey tool that emits sound pulses which bounce back from features and objects buried beneath the sea floor.

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Sub-Bottom Profiler

Paleoenvironment

The ancient environment, which can be reconstructed using techniques such as archaeozoology and palynology.

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Paleoenvironment

El Khiam

A site in Palestine with a distinctive point of the PPNA lithic industry. The point is a truncated and symmetrically notched bladelet with a tip formed by marginal retouching.

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El Khiam

Filler

A powdered or ground substance added to a paint or sculpture material to give extra bulk or body. Fillers for resin also make the material opaque.

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Filler

Geoglyph

Any ground-constructed example of rock art, such as intaglios or rock alignments; straight lines, geometric shapes, and other representative designs found on the desert plain. Geoglyphs can be formed by piling up materials on the ground surface or by removing surface materials and most suggest a ...

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Geoglyph

Boudicca

Ancient British queen of the Iceni tribe or Norfolk who led a revolt against Roman rule in 60 AD. After suffering many cruelties to her family, herself, and her tribe at the hands of the Romans, Boudicca raised a rebellion throughout East Anglia. They burned Camulodunum (Colchester), Verulamium (...

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Boudicca

West Slope Ware

Pottery of the Hellenistic period decorated with simple designs, found on the west slope of the Athens Acropolis. It evolved from Black-Glossed pottery and was decorated in white and yellow with some incision. Corinth and Crete were also centers of its production.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

West Slope Ware

Pochteca

In Aztec society, the class of long-distance merchants who traveled to foreign lands to trade and to spy. It was a hereditary guild of armed merchants who traveled into distant lands looking for luxury goods to bring back to the royal house. Quite often the pochteca would seize lands of hostile p...

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Pochteca

Reamer

A blacksmith's tool in the form of a tapered square-sectioned rod that is used to expand a hole in a piece of thin or soft metal by rotating the reamer in the hole while pushing down on the top.

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Reamer

Roof Furniture

Wooden, stone, or ceramic items used as decorative and functional features of a roof. They include finials on the gables, antefixes to act as stoppers for hollow tiles emerging at the eaves, chimney pots, louvers, and smoke turrets to ventilate fires inside the building and let fumes escape, and ...

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Roof Furniture

Petrological Microscopy

The petrological microscope is used in the examination of thin sections of stone artifacts or pottery (ceramic petrology), in order to identify, and eventually locate, the geographical source of the rocks or minerals present. A slice, approximately 1 mm. thick, is removed from the artifact, groun...

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Petrological Microscopy

Cloisonné

A technique of decorative enameling in which different colors of a pattern are separated by thin strips of metal. It consists of soldering to a metal surface, thin metal strips bent to the outline of a design and filling the resulting spaces, called "cloisons" (French for "partitions or cells") w...

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Cloisonné

Xinle

Site in Liaoning Province, China, and name of a Neolithic culture of eastern Manchuria dated to the late 6th millennium BC. There are shell middens, textured pottery, and millet agriculture.

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Xinle

Ele Bor

A rock shelter site which was first occupied in the Middle Stone Age. There was a backed-microlith industry used by them and the following group of the Aquatic Civilization. Domestic sheep/goats and camel were present in small numbers from about the 3rd millennium BC, at which time pottery also c...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Ele Bor

Fieldwork

Any form of archaeological research or exploration carried out in an actual setting in the natural environment - excavation, surveying, fieldwalking, etc. - rather than in a laboratory, museum, or other such facility. Some archaeologists call everything they do outdoors 'fieldwork', but others di...

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Fieldwork

X-Ray Emission

A method to determine the elements of a bone by bombarding it with electrons to produce a signature pattern of X-rays. X-ray emission spectrometry is the group of analytical methods in which emitted X-ray radiation is monitored. X rays are emitted when an electron in an outer orbital falls into a...

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X-Ray Emission

Pickax

A pick with a point at one end and a cutting blade at the other end.

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Pickax

Ebla

A site on the River Orontes in northern Syria (now Tell Mardikh) which was the seat of a powerful state in the mid 3rd millennium BC, though occupied from the 4th millennium onward. It fell to Akkad c 2250 but continued to flourish. The remains and a large archive of 15,000+ cuneiform texts and f...

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Ebla

Minaean

One of the kingdoms of southern Arabia in the 1st millennium BC, contemporary with the Sabeans, Qatabaneans and Hadramis. The Minaean kingdom lasted from the 4th to the 2nd century BC and was predominantly a trading organization that, for the period, monopolized the trade routes. They seem to be ...

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Minaean

Middle Assyrian

A period in the history of the Assyrian empire extending from the 14th-12th centuries BC. In the Late Bronze Age, Assyria was dominated by the Mitanni state, but in the 14th century BC, Assyria became dominant. Ashur-uballit I created the first Assyrian empire and initiated the Middle Assyrian pe...

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Middle Assyrian