Bondi Point

A small, asymmetric-backed point, named for Bondi, Sydney, Australia, which is a component of the Australian Small Tool Tradition. It is usually less than 5 cm long and is sometimes described as a backed blade. Some examples suggest that the points were set in wooden handles or shafts. It occurs ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Bondi Point

Architrave

In Greek and Roman architecture, that part of an entablature which rests immediately upon the abacus on the capital of a column or pilaster. It is also the term used for the horizontal beam between columns, or between a column and a wall, which supports a ceiling. A third definition is a collecti...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Architrave

Caso Y Andrade, Alfonso

Mexican archaeologist and government official who explored the early Oaxacan cultures and who excavated Tomb Seven at Monte Albán, the earliest-known North American necropolis. His discovery and analysis of the burial offerings at Tomb Seven proved that Monte Albán had been occupied by the Mixtec...

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Caso Y Andrade, Alfonso

Prepared Core

A nodule of chert, flint, or obsidian which has been shaped to easily produce blades.

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Prepared Core

Alpera

A collection of well-preserved paintings over the back wall of the shallow rock shelter Cueva Vieja in southeast Spain. They belong to the Spanish Levant cycle, c 8000-5000 BC (Mesolithic), and depict a group of women, hunters or warriors with bows and arrows and feather headdresses; and deer, ox...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Alpera

Cultural Layer

The deposition of materials from settlements or other prehistoric areas of activity that accumulate over a relatively continuous time. Several such layers create a stratigraphic and chronological sequence.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Cultural Layer

Bow And Arrow

Weapon consisting of two parts; the bow is made of a strip of flexible material, such as wood, with a cord linking the two ends of the strip to form a tension from which is propelled the arrow; the arrow is a straight shaft with a sharp point on one end and usually with feathers attached to the o...

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Bow And Arrow

Aroid

The edible tuber of the Aracae family that were important in prehistoric Oceanic, South Asian, and Southeast Asian subsistence. The species is grown in irrigated terraces or fields or cultivated in pits cut to groundwater. Aroids were cultivated by at least 3000 BC and had spread from India to Eg...

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Aroid

Hypaethral

In architecture, designating a building that is open to the sky and has no roof, as the Kiosk of Trajan at Philae, Egypt. It especially referred to temples, the cella of which had no roof or a partial roof. On the roofs of Egyptian temples, hypaethral temples are arranged with regard to astronomi...

archaeologsEnglishArchitectural

Hypaethral

Eggshell Ware

Small, delicate beakers, bowls, or jars, usually in white or cream, but occasionally black. The name refers to the sides of the vessels which are typically 2mm or less thick. Imported to Britain in the 1st century AD and imitated locally.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery

Eggshell Ware

Pathology

The study of diseases or abnormalities.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Pathology

Mardikh, Tell

Large fortified site in northern Mesopotamia, southwest of Aleppo, Syria, which was the ancient Ebla. Important Middle Bronze Age remains, including city gate, and fine sculpture have been found. Ebla was previously known from cuneiform texts, including inscriptions of kings of Akkad and Gudea of...

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Mardikh, Tell

Hide Scraper

A tool made out of bone or stone used for removing the flesh from an animal hide

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Hide Scraper

Ra

The supreme god of ancient Egypt before his displacement by Amen (Amun). He was sun god and deity of the city of Heliopolis, whose cult is first attested in the name of the 2nd Dynasty ruler Raneb (c 2865 BC). Ra is depicted as a hawk-headed man with a sun disc on his head. He was especially impo...

archaeologsEnglishGod Names, Mythology

Ra

Cai Beo

A site in north Vietnam with a sequence from the late Hoabinhian stone tool so to edge-grinding (c 5000 BC) to Neolithic polished stone adzes (c 4500 BC).

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Cai Beo

Juxtlahuaca Caves

A cave site in Guerrero, Mexico, containing the earliest polychrome painting in the New World. Done in the Olmec style, they are dated to c 3000 years ago and are found nearly a mile inside a mountain. Similar cave paintings have been found in nearby Oxtotilan.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names

Juxtlahuaca Caves

Mallia

A palace and town of the Minoans on the north coast of Crete, east of Knossos. The large palace has a central court and was built in the Middle Minoan and Late Minoan I periods (c 1900-1450 BC) though rebuilding was needed after an earthquake c 1700 BC. The final destruction is dated c 1450 BC, p...

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Mallia

La Riera

Prehistoric cave site in Asturias, Spain, with a large number of stone artifacts and faunal evidence of the Upper Palaeolithic (Solutrean and Magdalenian). There was an Azilian shell midden and Asturian levels; its occupation spans c 20,500-6500 bp.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

La Riera

Tepeu

Late Classic phase dated to 600-900 AD, one of to Lowland Maya chronological phases or cultures (the other being the Tzakol, Early Classic, c 250 AD). It is defined by a complex of cultural materials, especially the polychrome vase. The typical shape is a tall, cylindrical vessel with a flat base...

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Tepeu

Cartilage

A durable flexible animal tissue of cells in a matrix of protein, carbohydrates (chondroitin), and fibers.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Cartilage

Technocomplex

A group of much more distantly or unrelated cultures sharing the same general families of artifact types as a widely diffused and interlinked response to common factors in environment, economy, and technology.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Technocomplex

New Britain

The largest island of the Bismarck Archipelago, southwestern Pacific, in Papua New Guinea. Archaeological discoveries include stone pestles and mortars like those from the New Guinea Highlands, an undated industry of waisted flaked tools from Kandrian, and the first discovered Lapita site (Watom ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

New Britain

Lindisfarne Gospel

Manuscript illuminated at Lindisfarne in the late 7th or 8th centuries in Hiberno-Saxon style (Celtic-Germanic). It is one of the most splendid Early Christian manuscripts from the British Isles and is housed in the British Museum. It was the first great Anglo-Saxon work of this kind. Attributed ...

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Lindisfarne Gospel

Potlatch

The ceremonial distribution of property and gifts to affirm or reaffirm social status, unique to Native Americans of the Northwest Pacific coast in the 19th century.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Potlatch

Strap Handle

On ceramic vessels a strap handle is one made from a strip of clay that is shaped by hand and then attached to the body of the pot at two points before firing.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Strap Handle