Mastos

A breast-shaped drinking cup, usually with one horizontal and one vertical handle. In Athens, black-glossed and figured-decorated examples have been found.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Mastos

Marble

A granular limestone or dolomite (a rock composed of calcium-magnesium carbonate) that has been recrystallized under the influence of heat, pressure, and aqueous solutions. This polished stone was used for sculpture and decoration and for architecture from the 7th century BC onwards. Most used we...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Marble

Discoidal

A stone artifact circular in shape and concave on both sides, usually of quartz, granite, flint, hematite, slate, or basalt. It ranges 1-9 inches in diameter and 1-20 pounds in weight. Some have a hole through the center and others have flanges around the edges. They seemed to have a ceremonial o...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Discoidal

Hemp

A tall annual plant whose tough fibers are used to make coarse fabric and ropes.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Hemp

Isotopic Fractionation

The enrichment of one isotope relative to another in a chemical or physical process. Two isotopes of an element are different in weight but not in gross chemical properties, which are determined by the number of electrons. It can be predicted theoretically and demonstrated experimentally, however...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Isotopic Fractionation

Hopi

The westernmost group of Pueblo Indians, situated in northeastern Arizona.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Hopi

Dryopithecine

Generic term for the Miocene fossil ancestor of both the living apes and modern humans

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Dryopithecine

Burin Adze

Shadow Mark

A surface shadow on an archaeological site that is caused by irregularities in elevation, indicating the presence of submerged features such as earthworks and ditches. These may be revealed through aerial photography. Shadow marks are best seen in the low sun of evenings and early mornings.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Shadow Mark

Disjunction

A bias in a date that occurs when the dated event is older than the target event and age is overestimated.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Disjunction

Lepenski Vir

A hunter-fisher village settlement on the banks of the Danube in Serbia. Trapezoidal houses (often with red plastered floors), stone hearths filled with fish bones and other refuse, and a remarkable group of stone sculptures --- by far the earliest monumental sculpture in Europe - were part of an...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Lepenski Vir

Balearic Islands

A group of islands including Majorca (Mallorca), Minorca, Ibiza, and Formentera, off the east coast of Spain. Various civilizations left their marks on the islands, though the prehistoric talayotic civilization (so-called from its rough stone towers called talayots) seems to have continued withou...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Balearic Islands

Roundness

The degree to which a sedimentary particle's corners and edges are rounded.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Roundness

Posthole

A hole dug or bored into the ground for holding an upright post. Once the post is installed, the remaining area of posthole is backfilled with earth and sometimes stronger packing material like stone. To archaeologists, postholes are the outline of a deteriorated post, indicating the former locat...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Posthole

Aerial Photography

A technique of photographic observation and survey of the ground from an aircraft, spacecraft, or satellite which provides detailed information about sites and features without excavation. It is most important for locating archaeological sites before destruction of the landscape through building,...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Aerial Photography

Stupa

A Buddhist monument consisting of a circular or hemispherical mound with a domelike casing of stone, often tiled, and intended to contain relics of the Buddha or of a Buddhist saint. Existing in China, Japan, Korea, India, Java, and Southeast Asia, stupas are often the focus of a monastery. They ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Stupa

Early Khartoum

A base camp site within modern Khartoum which provided the first clear picture of the so-called 'Aquatic Civilization'. The site had traces of sun-dried daub suggesting the presence of temporary structures. Fishing done with bone-headed harpoons was the economic basis of the settlement. Other art...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Early Khartoum

Witów

Upper Palaeolithic site in Poland with artifacts of the Aeolian c 11,020 bp - including blades, burins, and endscrapers.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Witów

Butter Churn

A vessel used to produce butter from milk through agitation.

archaeologsEnglishArtifacts, Tools

Butter Churn

Staples

The food products most depended upon for survival.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Staples

Abkan

A stone industry of southern Nubia that was probably the work of indigenous peoples who were ancestral to the Nubian A Group. These peoples maintained trade contact with southerly regions of the Nile Valley during the 4th millennium BC.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Abkan

Dong Zuobin

Chinese archaeologist who specialized in oracle bone inscriptions from the Shang dynasty (1400-1100/1027 BC). He tried to reconstruct the bones' context and establish criteria for determining fakes. He found 10,000 complete or fragmentary oracle bones.

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Dong Zuobin

Sundaland

The enlarged Southeast Asian continental area which was created when sea levels dropped in periods of glaciation. Much of western Indonesia was then connected to the mainland. Until about 7000 BC, the seas were some 150 feet (50 m) lower than they are now, and the area west of Makassar Strait con...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Sundaland

Pipe-Stem Dating

A method of calculating the date of American Colonial assemblages based on the variation in hole diameters in clay pipe stems. J.C. Harrington first drew attention to the fact that there is a general reduction in hole size from 1620-1800. Lewis Binford then developed a regression equation, thus: ...

archaeologsEnglishOthers

Pipe-Stem Dating

Carinated

Pertaining to a vessel having ridges. See Carination.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery, Others

Carinated

Siret, Henri

Belgian amateur archaeologists who worked in the Almeria region of Spain and uncovered Chalcolithic and Bronze Age cultures at such sites as Los Millares, El Argar, and Tabernas.

archaeologsEnglishOthers