Old Kingdom

A period in Egyptian history including the 3rd through 8th Dynasties, c 2575-2130 BC. It preceded the Middle Kingdom and is marked by the building of colossal stone pyramids. Most of the royal pyramid complexes and private mastaba tombs of the Memphite necropolis were built during this time. The ...

archaeologsEnglishPeriods

Old Kingdom

Syllabary

A system of written symbols used to represent the syllables of the words of a language. Writing systems that use syllabaries include modern Japanese, Cherokee, the ancient Cretan scripts (Linear A, Linear B), and various Indic and cuneiform writing systems. Some syllabaries have separate symbols ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Languages

Syllabary

Sima

The roof gutter of a Classical roof; a row of vertical tiles placed at the edge of the roof above the cornice. It was usually clay and water was thrown clear of the building by elaborate spouts often shaped like lions' heads.

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Sima

Baradostian

An Upper Palaeolithic flint industry following the Mousterian in northern Iraq and Iran, with the type site in a cave at Shanidar. It has radiocarbon dates c 30,000 BC and may have begun as early as 36,000 BC. The Baradostian was replaced by a local Upper Palaeolithic industry called the Zarzian ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Baradostian

Taya, Tell

Tell site in northern Iraq of a city of the Early Dynastic and Sargonid periods (mid-3rd millennium BC to early 2nd millennium BC) with extensive stone architecture. Unlike most Mesopotamian cities, the building material was not mud-brick but stone, which has made it possible to map in considerab...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Taya, Tell

Fiji

An archipelago in eastern Melanesia. Archaeological evidence shows that Fiji was settled by Austronesian-speaking peoples in the late 2nd millennium BC, and they developed pottery by about 1300 BC. A rich archaeological sequence begins with the Lapita culture from about 1300 BC, and progresses th...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Fiji

Brown Earth

Brown forest soils that result from prolonged forestal conditions and which develops under mature deciduous woodland. Brown earths are thought to have covered most of the British Isles and temperate Europe under the great forests which existed during the middle of the present Interglacial. The so...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Brown Earth

Rippled Decoration

A technique of pottery burnish in which the whole surface is worked into ripples, in extreme examples approaching fluting.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Rippled Decoration

Musket

An infantryman's light gun with a long barrel, typically smooth-bored and fired from the shoulder

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Musket

Mestizo

A person of mixed blood - particularly used to denote mixed European and Native American ancestry.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Mestizo

Saint-Michel-Du-Touch

Neolithic site with an enclosure of palisades and ditches in Haute-Garonne, France. There are many small structures which may be hut bases or hearths, all dating to the Chasséen, c 4500-3400 BC. A pit contained two rich burials.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Saint-Michel-Du-Touch

Pollen Influx

An estimate of the number of pollen grains incorporated into a fixed volume of sediments over a particular time. If the pollen influx is known, the number of years contained in a certain volume of sediment can be estimated.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Pollen Influx

Spy

The find site of three Neanderthal skeletons in a cave at Spy, Belgium, associated with Middle Paleolithic stone tools and an extinct subarctic fauna. These complete skeletons were found during excavations of the Mousterian levels. It was only after these discoveries that it was recognized that N...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Spy

Phenetic Dendrogram

A tree diagram showing the relationship of individuals on the basis of observed similarity and difference, generally calculated in terms of taxonomic distance: the tree-form does not necessarily carry phylogenetic implications.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Phenetic Dendrogram

Cannibalism

The eating of human flesh by men. This is done either out of dire need or for ritual purposes, when parts of deceased relatives or enemies may be eaten so that their power can be magically acquired. Disarticulated bones of humans, as well as animals, have been found in the ditches of Neolithic ca...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Cannibalism

Macroblade

A large blade, greater than 5 cm in length

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Macroblade

Subsistence Level

The minimum resources, e.g., food, shelter, water, necessary to support human life.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Subsistence Level

Tayacian

A term sometimes used to describe Lower and Middle Palaeolithic flake industries which lack handaxes, bifaces, and carefully retouched implements. Originally the term was coined for the industries from the lower levels at La Micoque (Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, the Dordogne, France), but it has subseque...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Tayacian

Symbolic Language

Language as a communications system characterized by (1) the use of a finite number of symbols, including sounds, to create an infinite number of words, sentences, and ideas; (2) displacement where topics can deal with the past or future and thus are not limited to the present time and space; (3)...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Languages

Symbolic Language

Prestige Goods

Exchange goods, often limited in range, to which a society ascribes high status or value. Examples are amber, copper, glass beads, and marine shells. High-prestige goods served to enhance the political value of the trade to local elites who directed and controlled it.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Prestige Goods

Empathetic Method

The use of personal intuitioin to seek understanding of the inner lives of other people, using the assumption that there is a common structure to human experience. This is used for interpreting prehistory and history by idealists and postprocessualists.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Empathetic Method

Castor Box

A shallow vessel in color-coated ware ( Nene Valley Ware) with a fitting lid of Roman date. Usually both box and lid were rouletted.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Castor Box

Domesday Book

A survey of land ownership in England after the Norman Conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes how in 1085 it was decided to make a record of the number of hides in land existing in each English shire and to establish the amount and value of acreage and livestock possessed by individual lan...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Domesday Book

Camp

A term used to describe any kind of ditched or embanked enclosure - from the Neolithic causewayed camps to Iron Age hill forts and Roman fortifications. Used to describe ancient works, it usually means the entrenched and fortified site within which an army lodged or defended itself. The Roman arm...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Camp

San José Mogote

The largest of a number of Zapotec village communities which developed in the Pre-Classic or Formative Period in central Oaxaca, Mexico, before 1300 BC. Agriculture was practiced by 'pot irrigation', direct watering from a well. There is evidence of Olmec influence and by c 900 BC the village had...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

San José Mogote