Primary Cultural Deposit

A cultural deposit that accumulates on the surface from human activity, e.g. ash layers or living floors.

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Primary Cultural Deposit

Tumbaga

An alloy of gold and copper common in Central and South America during the first millennium AD. It was used for making fine ornaments, particularly in the native cultures of Colombia.

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Tumbaga

Ox-Scapula Shovel

The shoulder-blade of an ox or large cow which has been used to shovel up broken rock and soil. Discarded and broken examples of such shovels are well represented at Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites in the British Isles, usually in association with ANTLER PICKS and antler rakes which, togethe...

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Ox-Scapula Shovel

Amenhotep Son Of Hapu

A high official during the reign of Amenhotep III of Egypt whose offices included chief royal architect. In this capacity, he probably supervised the construction of Amenhotep III's mortuary temples at Thebes near modern Luxor, the building of another temple in Nubia (modern Sudan), the extractio...

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Amenhotep Son Of Hapu

Silica Gloss

The sheen or polish that occurs on flint when it is used to cut grass

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Silica Gloss

Qurum

Sites on the coast of Oman, Arabia, with evidence of mid-Holocene hunting-gathering / maritime people. There are extensive cemeteries on the sites.

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Qurum

Jasper

A high-quality chert or agate often used as raw material for the manufacture of stone tools. It is an opaque, fine-grained or dense variety of the silica mineral that is mainly brick red to brownish red. Jasper has long been used for jewelry and ornamentation, has a dull luster but takes a fine p...

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Jasper

Tortoise Core

In stone toolmaking, a distinctive core having the shape of a tortoise shell and characteristic of the Levalloisian culture. A nodule of flint is prepared to form a core resembling a tortoise, from which flakes are struck.

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Tortoise Core

Sample Assemblage

The portion of the fossil assemblage that has been excavated or collected and then analyzed.

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Sample Assemblage

Cleaver

A heavy, large core or flake tool of the Palaeolithic period, typically having a wide, straight cutting edge at one end, like a modern ax head. Technologically it is related to the handax, and is often found as a component of Acheulian (esp. Upper Acheulian) handax industries. The sharp transvers...

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Cleaver

Hassuna

A prehistoric tell site near Mosul in northern Iraq with a sequence of a pre-Samarran culture in northern Mesopotamia. The site has given its name to the pottery ware present in its lowest levels, dated to the 6th millennium BC, and a culture complex. This pottery may be related to that of the up...

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Hassuna

Line Sinker

A weight attached to a fishing line in order to help it sink towards the bottom.

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Line Sinker

Age Profile

A pattern of the distribution of an animal population's ages as the result of death by natural causes. This mortality pattern is based on bone- or tooth-wear analysis. It demonstrates a natural age distribution in which the older the age group the fewer the individuals it has.

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Age Profile

Thatch

Traditional style of roofing used in many parts of the world at different times whereby bundles of organic material such as reed, straw, heather, turf, or ling are tied together over a wooden frame with the long axis of the plant fiber parallel to the slope of the roof to provide good weather-pro...

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Thatch

Verona

City in northern Italy at the foot of the Lessini Mountains on the River Adige. The city was founded by an ancient tribe (possibly the Euganei or Raeti) and was later occupied by the Gallic Cenomani. It became a Roman colony in 89 BC and rapidly rose in importance because it was at the junction o...

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Verona

Lyngby

A site in Jutland, Denmark, which has given its name to a kind of small bone implements (axes) made of antler stem and branch and beveled to form a sharp edge. The tools date to c 9000-8000 BC.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Lyngby

Ipiutak

An Eskimo/Inuit culture of northwestern Alaska, probably dating from the 2nd to the 6th century AD. The type site at Point Hope is the largest Eskimo/Inuit village ever discovered in Alaska. The village had about 600 houses and many burials accompanied by finely carved bone and ivory objects. The...

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Ipiutak

Ka

The spiritual double of a living human being, created at the time of birth in Egyptian belief and which comes into its own in the afterlife. The ka could be released during life in dreams, but was finally released at death. It was symbolized by a pair of upraised arms and received mortuary offeri...

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Ka

B.P.

The abbreviation for 'Before Present', used especially in radiocarbon dating. The fixed reference date for 'Before Present' has been established as 1950 AD. Thus, 4250 BP would mean 4250 years prior to 1950, or 2300 BC. The year 1950 was the latest that the atmosphere was sufficiently uncontamina...

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B.P.

Promontory Culture

A culture sometimes identified with the Fremont culture in northern Utah which is now considered an early phase of the late prehistoric groups that followed the Fremont. It was a bison-hunting, cave-dwelling people.

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Promontory Culture

Symposium

In ancient Greece, a males-only drinking party often after a banquet. The symposium is often a scene on Greek pottery. There was music, conversation, and sex.

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Symposium

Katun

A period of time in the Classic Maya Long Count equal to 7200 days (about 20 years). It is also the chronological unit comprising the Short Count. The celebration of katuns was a major ritual of kingship in the Classic period.

archaeologsEnglishPeriods

Katun

Spatial Context

The location of an object and its spatial relation to other objects in the archaeological record.

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Spatial Context

Mound Builder People

A mythical, non-Native American people, c 500 BC to c 100 AD, postulated as being responsible for constructing the thousands of burial mounds with extensive enclosures of banked earth in the east-central and southeast United States.

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Mound Builder People

Kas

Site of a Bronze Age shipwreck off Cap Uluburun, Turkey, which was probably going to the Aegean when it sank in the 14th century BC. Objects found in 1982 in the shipwreck include the first known gold scarab of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. Other items are copper, tin and glass ingots, bronze too...

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Kas