Shaft-Hole

A hole in an implement or weapon to hold the haft. A shaft-hole ax is an ax-head of metal or stone with a hole through it for hafting. Bronze axes and adzes from Mesopotamia of at least 2700 BC are shaft-hole types, the hole for the handle being formed in a mold. This method eliminated lashing th...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shaft-Hole

Flintlock Musket

A musket fired by use of a flintlock. A gunflint is held in the lock which on pulling the trigger pushes back the pan cover creating sparks which set off the powder in the pan causing a flame to go through and set off the charge in the barrel.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Flintlock Musket

Total System Approach

Archaeological research based on the assumption that in order to reconstruct an ancient culture, all parts of it must be examined.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Total System Approach

Ford, James Alfred

American archaeologist who worked mainly in southeastern US and developed the technique of seriation of chronological ordering. He established the archaeological sequence of ceramic typology, seriation, and stratigraphy of coastal Peru. Ford argued that archaeological types were imposed on data b...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Ford, James Alfred

Gobi

The great desert of east central Asia that stretches across vast lands in the Mongolian People's Republic and the Inner Mongolia region of China. Mesolithic and Neolithic material was discovered, proving that climatic conditions were much less extreme in the past. Finds included many microliths, ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Gobi

Scorper

A small steel metalworking tool with a broad sharp edge used for removing the background from designs on metalwork to allow the pattern to stand out. The tool may also be moved forward or backward through the metal on alternate corners - thus producing a zigzag or tremolo line. It is likely that ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Scorper

Cimmerians

An ancient nomadic people of the Russian steppes, north of the Caucasus and Sea of Azov, driven out by the Scythians into Anatolia toward the end of the 8th century BC. As they retreated, they destroyed Phrygia, Lydia, and the Greek cities on the coast and then caused havoc in Anatolia. Their dec...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Cimmerians

Pantano Longarini

A large wreck of 5th-7th century found in the sea off Pantano Longarini in southeast Sicily. The vessel would have been about 45 meters long and 9 meters wide; the structural details of the boat have contributed to the study of Byzantine ship-building.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Pantano Longarini

Upper Swan

Site on Swan River, Western Australia, with a date of c 38,000 bp and an assemblage of quartz and quartzite flakes and flake tools.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Upper Swan

Midpoint

In lithics, an imaginary point a the intersection of the Midline and the transverse line.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Midpoint

Mesquite Pod

The edible, bean-like seed vessel harvested from the mesquite tree (genus Prosopis) of southwestern US, central America, and South America. Native Americans cooked the sugary pods into a syrup; the seeds could also be roasted and eaten.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Mesquite Pod

Zhoukoudian

Palaeolithic site in Hebei province, China, with numerous human fossils, including 'Peking man', found in cave deposits of c 400,000-700,000 years ago. Over 40 individuals are represented; this has become one of the two fossil populations on which Homo erectus is based. In 1941, when the Japanese...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Zhoukoudian

Kernos

A Greek cult vessel - dish, bowl, or jar - made of terra-cotta or stucco-covered sun-baked brick and used for the offering of first fruits. The jar held small cups around its lip and examples are found from the Bronze Age onwards.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Kernos

Gold-Figured

A Greek technique of decorating silver plate with gold foil, especially on cups, phiale, and kantharos. Detail is incised in the gold foil and the decoration is similar to the red-figured technique used particularly on Athenian pottery.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Gold-Figured

Troy

Ancient city in northwestern Anatolia (Turkey) that holds an enduring place in both literature (the "Iliad" "Odyssey" etc.) and archaeology. A large mound called Hisarlik (or Hissarlik) by the Turks holds the ruins - as discovered by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Between 1870-1890...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Troy

Refitting

The reassembling of stone debitage and cores to reconstruct ancient lithic technologies. It is any attempt to put stone tools and flakes back together again, which provides important information on the processes involved in the knapper's craft. The refitting or conjoining of artifact or ecofact f...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Refitting

Mold

A matrix for casting metal. Molten metal poured into a concavity will solidify into a corresponding shape. The concavity has only to be given the shape of the required artifact. Such molds can be made of stone, pottery, or metal with a melting point higher than that of the alloy being cast. Molds...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Mold

Ugarit

Important site of an ancient Syrian city, north of Latakia on the Syrian coast, occupied from an aceramic Early Neolithic (7th millennium BC) through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It was destroyed c 1200 BC; its fall coincided with the invasion of the Northern and Sea Peoples and earthquakes a...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Ugarit

Picking

An excavation technique which employs a small pickax, usually with a 5-7 inch pick, to loosen the soil, which is then shoveled out of the unit and screened.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Picking

Plank Coffin

Wooden box made from planks fixed together (rather than a hollowed trunk, for example) for the containment of a human corpse prior to and during burial. For Roman and later times plank coffins are usually recognized archaeologically from the pattern of nails found in the grave. Plank coffins made...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Plank Coffin

Process

Cultural change that takes place as a result of interactions between a cultural system's elements and the culture's environment.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Process

Basse-Yutz

Bronze wine flagons found in Moselle, France, with coral and enamel inlay of c 400 BC. The pair is thought to have come from a Celtic chieftain's grave.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Basse-Yutz

Bersu, Gerhard

A German archaeologist who emigrated to Britain in the 1930s and introduced methods such as area excavation of settlement sites, as at Little Woodbury and on the Isle of Man.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Bersu, Gerhard

Ancestor Bust

Small painted apelike busts that were the focus of ancestor worship in Egypt's New Kingdom. Many were of limestone or sandstone, with some smaller examples made of wood and clay.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Ancestor Bust

Script

Any writing system in its totality; a signary and the conventions which govern its use. Scripts may contain several different classes of sign - punctuation, determinative, logographic, and phonetic.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Script