Laetoli

A site just south of Olduvai in northern Tanzania where Australopithecine fossils have been found dating to about 4-3.5 million years ago. The fossils are attributed to Australopithecus afarensis or A. africanus. Of particular interest are 3.8-million-year-old lines of footprints left in muddy as...

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Laetoli

Lchashen

Bronze Age site by Lake Sevan, Armenia, with pit graves under stone cairns. There are traces of wheeled wagons, carts, and chariots.

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Lchashen

Similaun Man

Chalcolithic man's skeleton found in the Similaun Pass of the Tirolean Alps, Italy. The well-preserved corpse, clothing, and appointments were probably covered by a glacier c 5000-5500 years ago (radiocarbon 3300 BC). It was the oldest mummified body found intact.

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Similaun Man

Llama

South American member of the camel family, Camelidae, a domesticated animal exploited by the ancient Andean civilizations as a beast of burden and, to a lesser extent, for its meat and wool. It is smaller in size than a camel and lacking a hump. Its wild ancestor, the guanaco, is still found in t...

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Llama

Cologne

A site on the left bank of the Rhine, West Germany, that was colonized by the Roman general Agrippa in 53 BC. A fortified settlement was established c 38 BC and it became a Roman colony in 50 AD. It was named Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, shortened to Colonia. It became the capital of the p...

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Cologne

Cresset

A metal basket, mounted on a pole, in which oil or pitch was burned for illumination.

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Cresset

Hongshan

A site in Liaoning Province, China, an the name of a Neolithic culture dated to c 3500-3000 BC. Hongshan had elaborate jade animal ornaments, large temple sites, female figurines, and masks.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Hongshan

Karolta

A site in northwest South Australia with petroglyphs in Panaramitee-style engravings. Dates range from 31,600-1400 bp.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Karolta

Ground-Penetrating Radar

A remote sensing device used in subsurface detection that transmits a radar pulse into the soil and records differential reflection of the pulses from buried strata and features. When a discontinuity is encountered, an echo returns to the radar receiving unit, where it is recorded.

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Ground-Penetrating Radar

Platform Mound

A platform of earth and stone, usually rectangular in shape and flat-topped, that forms a base for the construction of a building, such as a palace or temple. The buildings served as habitation and/or ceremonial structures.

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Platform Mound

Rite Of Passage

A ritual symbolizing a transition in the life of an individual and his or her altered relationships to others.

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Rite Of Passage

Signary

The set of signs of all classes in a script, or the set of signs in one of these classes, as in phonetic signary. Signs themselves are representations which are non-figurative.

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Signary

Barbican

An outer fortification or defense to a city, castle, fort, or settlement, especially a double or single tower erected over a gateway or bridge. It often served as a watch tower. The term was also used for a temporary wooden tower or bulwark.

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Barbican

Lithophone

Naturally occurring stones, often stalactites or stalagmites, which were struck to make music since Palaeolithic times. It is a set of struck sonorous stones (individually called phonoliths) found from the South Seas and South America to Africa and the Far East. Large stones were used in some Vie...

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Lithophone

Timber-Slot

A trench dug to contain a horizontal beam.

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Timber-Slot

Circumpolar Cultures

A group of related cultures in the most northerly (Arctic) regions of Europe, including Siberia, and North America. These peoples lived north of the region where settled farming life was possible. Although contemporary with Neolithic and Bronze Age communities farther south, the circumpolar tribe...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Circumpolar Cultures

Karst

An irregular limestone region with sinkholes, underground streams, and caverns. Karsts owe their existence to the removal of bedrock in solution and to the development of underground drainage without the development of surface stream valleys. Karst is characterized by the formation and growth of ...

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Karst

Parchment

Writing material made from the skin of calves, sheep, or goat, which gradually replaced papyrus during the late Roman empire, resulting in the book (codex) replacing the scroll. The name apparently derives from the ancient Greek city of Pergamum (in Turkey), where parchment is said to have been i...

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Parchment

Kenyon,

British archaeologist who made major contributions to the understanding of the history of Palestine - especially through work at Jericho and Jerusalem. The work at Jericho established the existence of an aceramic Neolithic (PPNA/B) and an Epipalaeolithic subsistence on wild cereals in the 9th-8th...

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Kenyon,

Knapper

One who manufactures stone artifacts.

archaeologsEnglishArtifacts

Knapper

Sambaquí

Shell middens along the Brazilian coast, north of Rio de Janeiro. The oldest debris was left by non-agricultural peoples who used no pottery and who made artifacts of chipped and polished stone (axes, adzes, choppers). The middens are of widely differing ages, from the 6th millennium BC until the...

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Sambaquí

Canterbury

A site on the River Stour in southeast England occupied since pre-Roman times. Lying at the intersection of important land routes, Canterbury already had a sizable Belgic settlement before the arrival of the Romans in 43 AD. The town was refounded soon after the invasion as Durovernum, the tribal...

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Canterbury

Sampling Frame

A list of sample units from which a sample is drawn.

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Sampling Frame

Plio-Pleistocene

The later part of the Pliocene and the early part of the Pleistocene, c 5-1 million years ago. The early Plio-Pleistocene Homo habilis appears to be more closely related to Homo sapiens than is Homo erectus.

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Plio-Pleistocene

Bog

A type of wetland ecosystem characterized by wet, spongy, poorly drained peaty soil. The term also describes the communities of plants growing on acid waterlogged ground, as opposed to fen. Three main types of bog exist: valley bogs that remain waterlogged due to the concentration of drainage int...

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Bog