Others - Archaeologs

Others

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Okhotsk

A late prehistoric culture of the coastal areas of northern and eastern Hokkaido, Skhalin and the Kurile Islands, Japan. It is intrusive to Hokkaido from the* north, co-existed with the Satsumon culture from about ad 800 to 1300, and then disappeared. The enigmatic maritime hunterfishermen, who a...

Ogham

A script which occurs crudely inscribed b^ a group of memorial pillar stones in the Celtic regions of Britain from as early as the 4th century. Usually the memorial consisted of no more than the name and descent of the dead man, and the script was equally simple. The 20 letters of the Ogham alpha...

Ofnet

A cave near Nordlingen in Bavaria, best known for the composite burial of 33 skulls of early Mesolithic date. Some earlier Palaeolithic deposits are also present in this arid the nearby Klein Ofnet cave.

Oenpelli Shelters

A group of five sites in the East Alligator River area of Arnhem Land, northern Australia. Three sites (Padypadiy, Nawamoyn and Malangangerr) are situated on the riverine plain, subject to wet monsoon flooding, while Tyimede I and II lie 22 km away on the adjoining Arnhem Land plateau, 240 metres...

Odmut

A long-occupied cave site of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age, located in the steep Piva Valley in the Dinaric mountains of Montenegro, Yugoslavia. Seven occupation horizons have been recorded: la-Ib, Early and Late Mesolithic levels, dated c8100-6650 be with a hunting economy...

Odderade Interstadial

An interstadial of the Weichselian cold stage. It has been dated by radiocarbon to about 58,000 bp, but this is at the extreme range of the technique and it may be earlier.

Ochre

A material made of the naturally occurring iron oxide mineral limonite. A variety of colours occurs — yellow, orange, brown, red and black. Ochre has been used as a pigment in cave art and for personal decoration.

Occupation Layer

A term applied by archaeologists to any layer that is believed to be an in situ accumulation of domestic refuse and other debris resulting from occupation of an area of a site by man. It is not at all certain that all deposits described as occupation layers necessarily originated in that way.

Obre

Two long-lived and adjacent Neolithic sites, near Kakanj, Bosnia, Yugoslavia. Obre I comprises four occupation horizons, the first with StarCevo pottery, dating c5100-4700 be, the next three with increasing quantities of Kakanj monochrome wares (dated c4500-4200 be). Obre II represents the most c...

Obanian

On the basis of some finds from the now-destroyed McArthur’s Cave at Oban in western Scotland, a Mesolithic culture called Obanian has been suggested. The antler harpoons were reminiscent of Azilian types, but the stone tools were too rare for diagnosis.

Obanian

archaeologsOthers

Oats

A group of cereals, members of the genus Avena. As in wheats, there are diploid species, with two sets of chromosomes, tetra-ploid with four and hexapioid with six sets of chromosomes—the results of crosses between species. Most (but not all) cultivated oats are hexapioid, and seem to have develo...

Oats

archaeologsOthers

Oakhurst

A cave near George, a short distance inland from the south coast of the Cape Province of South Africa. Over three metres of deposit preserved a microlithic industry of Wilton type overlying material without backed microliths and where utilized flakes and informal scrapers occurred to the virtual ...

Oahu

See Bellows Beach, Hawaiian Islands, Makaha Valley.

Oahu

archaeologsOthers

Nydam

One of the most important archaeological finds of the Migration Period is the bog deposit from Nydam, southern Jutland. Many objects were ritually deposited in this mere over several centuries, and were fortunately preserved by the peaty soil. The most important of these finds was one of three cl...

Nuraghe

Type of stone tower built of Cyclopean masonry which has given its name to the main Bronze Age culture of Sardinia. The earliest nuraghi, built early in the 2nd millennium bc (later third millennium bc) are simple stone towers with internal chambers, but later examples can be very complex, consis...

Numidia

Homeland in Algeria and Tunisia of the Roman-period Numidae, whose name Roman authors derived from Greek nomades, ‘nomads’. The Numidae were a group of nomadic Berber tribes, occupying a region of North Africa that corresponds today with the eastern part of Algeria and the western part of Tunisia...

Nubian C Group

The conventional designation of the indigenous population of Nubia in the late 3rd millennium bc. There is disagreement as to the exent to which these people were the direct descendants of the preceding Nubian A Group population, there being apparent connections also between the C Group and conte...

Nubian A Group

The name conventionally given to the earliest fully food-producing society known in the archaeological record of Nubia, late in the 4th millennium be. The ‘A Group’ people probably had an indigenous Nubian ancestry, but were much influenced from later Pre-Dynastic Egypt, with which they were evid...

Ntereso

The site of a fishing settlement related to the Kintampo industry, located to the east of that industry’s main area of distribution, in the valley of the White Volta, Ghana. In addition to artefacts characteristic of Kintampo were others, notably bifacially flaked arrow-heads, bone harpoon-heads ...

Novgorod

A city on the River Valkhow about 160 km south of Leningrad in the Soviet Union. Excavations in the medieval town were carried out before and after World War II and proved some of the most remarkable in Europe. Waterlogged conditions have preserved intact a complete sequence of wooden buildings a...

Norton

Sometimes designated PaleoEskimo, the Norton tradition embraces the cultural continuum Choris-Norton-Ipiutak and spans the period clOOO bc to ad 1000. The Norton aspect of this continuum is typically represented by the presence of poorly fired, check-stamped pottery and tools of crude appearance,...

Northwest Coast Tradition

Collection of prehistoric groups whose common economic base was the exploitation of abundant marine and riverine resources. Centred on the Pacific Coast, USA-Canadian border, the cultural area of the tradition stretches from southeastern Alaska to Northern California. Much information comes from ...

Northumbria

The Saxon kingdom of Northumbria was founded in the 7th century by the earlier kingdoms of Bemicia and Deira. After the conversion of King Edwin in 626 and the establishment of many major monasteries within the region, Northumbria became a centre of missionary activity and a leading centre for th...

Normans

The population of the Duchy of Normandy in northwest France was a mixed race descending from the Franks and 10th-century Norse settlers. Under leaders such as William the Conqueror, Robert Guiscard, Roger of Sicily and Bohemund of Taranto, the Normans effected the conquest of England, Sicily and ...

Nora

A Phoenician colony on the promontory of Cape Pula, Sardinia, probably of the 8th century bc. From the end of the 6th century bc Sardinia came under Carthaginian control, and from 238 bc under Roman, becoming a province in 227 BC. Nora seems to have enjoyed particular prosperity under Roman rule,...

Non Nok Tha

A site of major importance in north-central Thailand, with burials spanning the period c35OO be to recent centuries. Like Ban Chiang, the site has produced,evidence for possible 4th-3rd millennium bc domestication of cattle, pig and dog, the cultivation of rice, and the use of copper and bronze. ...

Nombe

A rock shelter in Simbu Province, Papua New Guinea. Excavation has revealed a rich cultural sequence from the late Pleistocene to the present, and the basal levels contain waisted blades, pebble tools and several extinct animals, including Protem-nodon and Thylacine. See also Kafiavana, Kiowa.

Noirmoutier

An island that lies off the coast of western France just south of the mouth of the Loire. The island was colonized by Philibert monks in the 6th or 7th century, and the monastery became an important producer of salt during Carolingian times. From 842, the Vikings raided the island repeatedly, for...

Noin-Ula

A range of hills in northern Mongolia near Lake Baikal. Kurgans believed to be tombs of Xiongnu nobility were excavated here by a Russian expedition in 1924-5. They are assigned to the 1st century ad on the evidence of a Chinese lacquer dish inscribed with a date equivalent to 2 bc. The tombs, wh...

Noin-Ula

archaeologsOthers

Nogliki I

Settlement of pit houses in the northeast of Sakhalin, an island off the east coast of Siberia, north of Japan. The settlement is regarded as Neolithic (defined by the presence of pottery rather than the practice of farming); the population lived by hunting and fishing and used pottery.

Noailles

The Grotte de Noailles, close to Brive in Correze, southwest France, has given its name to a small multiple burin. The Noailles burin distinguishes a culture of considerable importance called Perigordian Vc or Noaillian, dating to c26,000-23,000 be.

Nkudzi

A later Iron Age cemetery site on the southwestern shore of Lake Malawi (formerly Lake Nyasa), probably dating to the late 18th or early 19th century. The abundant grave goods may be assumed to reflect the material culture available in the area at a time of increasing slave-raiding and coastal tr...

Nkope

An Early Iron Age site near the southern end of Lake Nyasa, which has given its name to the variant of the Early Iron Age complex represented in southern Malawi and eastern Zambia from about the 4th to the 11th century ad.

Njoro River Cave

Dated to cl000 be, this is one of the earliest well-documented Neolithic sites in southern Kenya. It was a cemetery for cremated burials, each interment being accompanied by a stone bowl and pestle, as well as by numerous hard stone beads and pendants. A finely decorated wooden vessel, such as is...

Nitrogen Dating

One of the methods of bone dating. After burial, the collagen component of bone gradually decomposes. This occurs at a slow, relatively uniform rate. Bones of similar age, which have been buried under similar conditions, possess roughly the same amount of collagen surviving undecomposed. Nitrogen...

Nitra

A fortified site in Poland where excavations have revealed traces of the 9th-century stronghold. It seems that within its walls there were workshops producing relics and metalwork that were distributed to other Slavic sites.

Nishapur

In the early Islamic period, Nishapur in Iran was among the most important towns of Khorasan; indeed, for a short period in the 9th century it replaced Marv as the regional capital. The town was a major commercial centre, noted for its textiles and visited by merchants from all over Western Asia ...

Ningxiang

[Ning-hsiang]. A county in Hunan province, China, the site of repeated finds of bronze ritual vessels and large bells. These objects date from the latter part of the Shang dynasty but often differ in style from Shang bronzes found at Anyang. Many similar bronzes have been unearthed along the midd...

Ningxiang

archaeologsOthers

Nimrud

[ancient Kalhu; biblical Calah]. One of the great cities of Assyria, situated on the Tigris River, south of Mosul; in the last century it was wrongly identified by Layard as the site of Nineveh and his book Nineveh and its Remains refers in fact to this site. Unlike many of the cities of Mesopota...

Nimes

[Roman Nemausus]. Important town of Roman Gallia Narbonensis (see Gaul) in southern France and at one time possibly its capital. Earlier, Nemausus had been a Celtic settlement, capital of the Volcae Arecomici, and associated with the shrine of a water-deity. The title Nemausus preserves the name ...

Nihon Shoki

[Nihongi]. The ‘Chronicles of Japan’, the first official history completed in 720. The work began in the 7th century with the same objectives as for Kojiki, but the Nihon Shoki is a more lengthy and scholarly attempt written in Chinese, the official written language of the day. Numerous documents...

Niello

Black paste composed of silver sulphide which was developed by Germanic and Anglo-Saxon metalworkers for infilling the incised pattern on a piece of silver. The inlay was heated after its application to the object, and was then usually burnished or gilded.

Niaux

One of the greatest Palaeolithic painted caves, near Tarascon in the Pyrenees, southwest France. The paintings are in black; bison and horse are the animals most frequently depicted. A new gallery discovered in 1970 has hundreds of Palaeolithic footprints.

Niah Caves

The Gunung Subis limestone massif near Niah in Sarawak, East Malaysia, contains a number of massive limestone caves, used for habitation and burial in ancient times. The most important, called the Great Cave, has archaeological deposits going back to 40,000 years ago, with a pebble and flake indu...

Niah Caves

archaeologsOthers

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