Others

Illyricum

Illuvial Horizon

Soil horizon which has resulted from the deposition of minerals, humus or plant nutrients, washed down from higher up in the profile. See eluvial horizon.

Illuminated Manuscript

Medieval handwritten books, decorated with paintings or drawings, usually executed on parchment or vellum. The illustrations themselves fall into several categories: miniatures (small paintings incorporated into the text or border, or occupying a whole page), decorated monograms or initial letter...

Illinoian

Group of Quaternary glacial deposits in North America; covered by the Sangamon soil and burying Yarmouth palaeosols (see Table 7, page 420). It consists mainly of tills, the products of large icesheets, and has been split up into three substages, the Liman, Monican and Jubileean. Tills of the Lim...

Ileret

Situated on the east side of Lake Turkana [Rudolf] in Kenya, a short distance south of the border with Ethiopia, Ileret has yielded important archaeological sites of two periods. The first group of discoveries, of Plio/ Pleistocene age, is noted here under East Rudolf. The second group dates to t...

Igbo Ukwu

An Iron Age burial site in southeastern Nigeria that has yielded remarkable evidence for artistic and technological development and accumulation of wealth in that part of West Africa during the closing centuries of the 1st millennium ad. The principal corpse was interred in a deep pit, sitting on...

Igbo Ukwu

Idojiri

A group of about 50 Middle and Late Jomon sites in the mountainous area of central Honshu, Japan. The sites are large clusters of substantial pit houses. Pottery with moulded rim ornamentation, numerous figurines, and curious stone arrangements suggest a well-developed ceremonialism. There are we...

Ice-Wedges

Structures that develop within the permafrost layer of the periglacial zone. In the winter, when the ground freezes and contracts, fissures are formed that penetrate into the permafrost. Water percolates in and freezes, and a wedge of ice gradually develops, continuously enlarging the fissure as ...

Ice-Wedges

Ice Age

Popular term for glacial or glaciation.

Iberomaurusian

Previously sometimes known as ‘Oranian’, this is an industry of the Maghreb dating to final Pleistocene times. Iberomaurusian assemblages are dominated by large numbers of small backed bladelets. Ilie earliest occurrences, as at Taforalt in eastern Morocco, are of the 14th millennium be. During t...

Iberomaurusian

Hypocaust

[from Greek hypokauston", ‘heated (space) under’]. The Roman system of central heating. Normally the ground floor (probably tiled or mosaic concrete) is supported on low pillars, allowing a draught of hot air from a nearby furnace to circulate in the sub-floor space. Examples are found from about...

Hyksos

Often described as the Shepherd Kings, these nomadic groups from Palestine entered Egypt towards the end of the Middle Kingdom in the 18th century BC. Subsequently they established a capital at Avaris in the eastern Nile delta and later extended their control further south. In the 17th century BC...

Hyaena

Three species of hyaena survive today: the striped hyaena (Hyaena hyaena) of northeast Africa and parts of Asia; the spotted hyaena ( Crocuta crocuta) of East and South Africa, and the South African brown hyaena (Hyaena brunnea). In the past, the spotted hyaena in particular had a far wider distr...

Hyaena

Hvar

Named after the island which boasts the largest number of its sites, the Hvar culture comprises the Late Neolithic and Copper Age sites of the south and central Dalmatian islands of Yugoslavia. In the absence of radiocarbon dates, a 4th millenium to early 3rd millennium be date seems reasonable. ...

Hüyük

Turkish word for an artificial mound, equivalent to the Arabic tell.

Huxley’s Line

The eastern edge of Sundaland and the East Asian faunal zone during the Pleistocene. The line runs between Bali and Lombok, Borneo and Sulawesi, thence northwards to the west of the Philippines. It marks the southeastern edge of the Asian continent during Pleistocene periods of low sea-level. Oft...

Huxley’s Line

Husterknupp

The site in the Rhineland, 50 km from Cologne, of a 9th- and 10th-century fortified manor which developed into a feudal castle. Excavations have shown a stage-by-stage evolution from a flat site in the river bend in the 9th century to a timber manorial complex on top of a mound, surrounded by anc...

Husterknupp

Hushu

(Hu-shu]. See Geometric pottery (China).

Hunting

In the 19th century the view developed that the hunting and gathering way of life still found among some modem primitive peoples had been typical of the earlier stone age or Palaeolithic period. Subsequent research has gone a long way to confirming that before farming was developed some 10,000 ye...

Hunting

Hunebed

Dutch name for the local variety of megalithic tomb. They consist of rectangular stone chambers with the entrance in one of the long sides, covered by a round or oval mound surrounded by a stone kerb. They were erected in the 3rd millennium be by communities of the TRB culture.

Humus

Decomposed organic matter which becomes incorporated into soil. Litter from plants is broken down by soil organisms into fine particles, which may then by incorporated into the soil by earthworms and other soil organisms.

Human Evolution

The hominids include all species believed to be related more closely to man than to the apes (pongids). Numerous human (and hominid) fossils are now known and conflicting interpretations of them exist. The simplest view is of a single line of species leading to modem man. Ramapithecus of the Mioc...

Human Evolution

Humaita

A lithic tradition based in southeastern Brazil, dated to the 5th millennium be and lasting into the Christian era. Its earliest manifestation is a rough flake, essentially unifacial, industry although some bifaces do appear, notably the boomerang shape. Clearly hunting oriented (artefacts includ...

Humaita

Huelva

Find-spot in the harbour of Huelva, southwest Spain, of a large hoard of Late Bronze Age bronzes, dated to the 7th and 6th centuries bc. The find, which may represent the remains of a prehistoric shipwreck, contained bronzes of types found in various Mediterranean contexts (e.g. a Cypriot type of...

Huasteca

A native group centred on the northeastern fringes of Mesoamerica in northern Veracruz and Tamaulipas provinces of Mexico. Although MAYA-speaking, there is little evidence of cultural contact with the Maya after 1400 be. The major influences in the Classic Period were Veracruz (see El Tajio) and ...

Huari

A major site of the Middle Horizon, located near Ayacucho in the Mantaro River basin in the Peruvian Andes. Strongly linked to Tiahuanaco, it is thought to have been a secondary centre for the diffusion, possibly by force, of the cultural traits of that city. Early ceramics (Chakipampa A) date to...

Huang

[huang]. A flat semi-circular or arcshaped jade pendant. Examples are known from Neolithic sites in China and the shape was made throughout the Bronze Age.

Style

The name applied to a class of surface patterns common on Chinese Eastern Zhou bronzes of the 6th-3rd centuries bc. Cast in relief, these dense arrays of hooks and curls — Loehr’s ‘graceful froth of the Huai style’ — derive from tight configurations of dragons but verge on complete abstraction. T...

Huahine

See Society Islands, Vaito’OTIA.

Huahine

Huaca De La Luna

See Moche.

Huaca De La Luna

Huaca

A name derived from the Quechua word meaning shrine, huacas were revered or sacred objects. Diverse in nature, ranging from portable amulets to large natural phenomena such as caves and rocks, they were thought by the Inca to have magical or religious powers. For example the Kenko Stone or Huanac...

Hsiung-Nu

See Ivolga, Noin-ula, Xiongnu. [Au]. See ritual vessels (China).

Hradîstè

A site situated on the Dyje River in Moravia. It is a well-excavated example of a Slavic stronghold and manorial residence of the 9th-12th centuries.

Hradîstè

Hoxnian

A group of British Quaternary interglacial deposits named after the site of Hoxne. They occur as isolated patches, related by pollen analysis and the analysis of other plant and animal fossils. Their exact age is unknown, but they are older than the extreme range of radiocarbon dating (70,000 yea...

Howiesonspoort

An ill-defined and poorly understood industry of the southern Cape Province of South Africa, marked by the appearance of small blades and backed tools at a time when most stone industries were still based upon the production of flakes struck from discoidal cores. The evidence for the date of the ...

Housesteads

[Roman Vercovicium or, less properly, Dorcovicus]. Wall-fort on Hadrian’s Wall, dramatically sited roughly mid-way along its length in Northumberland, England. Substantial remains are to be seen of the stone buildings, gateways and ramparts, especially from the 3rd century onward, when the garris...

Hourglass Perforation

Type of perforation found in many prehistoric stone artefacts. Holes are drilled from opposite sides of the artefact to produce a perforation that is bi-conical or ‘hourglass’ shaped.