Others - Archaeologs

Others

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Recently Added: Others

Dun

Term used for stone-built fortified settlements found in western and northern Scotland. Most are quite small, representing an individual homestead, but the term is sometimes applied to larger settlements defended with stone walls. Many duns were built in the later Iron Age,but they continued to b...

Duff

(1912-78). Leading New Zealand archaeologist, best known for his excavations at the site of Wairau Bar, his classification of Polynesian and Southeast Asian stone adzes, and his fundamental work The Moa-hunter Period of Maori Culture, first published in 1950.

Duff

archaeologsOthers

Dublin

The city of Dublin, the modem capital of Eire, was founded by Norse settlers in the 9th century. Its position near the Liffey estuary provides a sheltered and defensible harbour, and througout much of the Middle Ages it remained one of the foremost sea ports in the British Isles. Excavations have...

Druids

A powerful Celtic priesthood, evidence for which we derive mostly from late Roman Republican and Imperial literary sources. Since they provided a focus of opposition to Roman expansionist aims, Druids tend to be viewed with hostility by Latin authors, and are credited with various barbarisms, suc...

Drift

The name given to all unconsolidated sediments which lie on the top of the ‘solid’ geology. This term originates from the belief that such deposits were transported across the waters of the Catastrophists’ ‘Flood’, frozen into drifting icebergs. The Catastrophist view of geology held that the obs...

Dralang

A megalithic site at Dralang in southwestern Tibet, discovered by A.H.Francke between 1900 and 1910. It consisted of a cleared space with a stake in the centre, flanked on two sides by Iha-t’o, arrangements of two stones supporting a third flat slab to form a small table-like structure. Within th...

Dou Wan

Dowsing. A practice similar to water divining. There have been a number of claims for the detection of archaeological sites by dowsing, but until the explanation of such phenomena is established it is difficult to assess the application of dowsing to archaeology.

Dou Wan

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Douglass

(1867-1962). American astronomer who developed the dendrochronology dating method. He outlined the method as early as 1901, but it was not until 1929 that he was able to publish an unbroken sequence of tree-rings for the Southwest USA extending back from the present day to the early years of the ...

Douglass

archaeologsOthers

Douar Doum

A site outside Rabat in Morocco which has revealed some of the earliest stone tools in Africa. The tools are in rough stone and include a variety of pebble tools, but no hand axes. They are typical of the Oldowan or pebble culture of Africa, and are contemporary with the Moulouyan dunes of about ...

Dos Aguas

Rock shelter with paintings of the Spanish Levantine (Mesolithic) type situated in Valencia province, southeast Spain.

Dorset Tradition

An eastern Arctic tradition whose stone-working technology is clearly related to the Arctic Small Tool Tradition. Its core area was centred on the North Foxe Basin in northern Canada, but ultimately its influence spread as far as Greenland. Whether the culture originated in Alaska or from a point...

Dorset Tradition

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Dorpfeld

(1853-1940). German archaeologist who excavated many important sites in the Greek world, both prehistoric and classical. He worked under Ernst Curtius on the excavations by the German Archaeological Institute at Olympia in the late 1870s and then assisted Schliemann on his third and fourth season...

Dorpfeld

archaeologsOthers

Dorestad

An early medieval trading site advantageously situated on the confluence of the Rivers Lek and Rhine in central Holland. Although it was first recognized in the 19th century it was not until the 1960s that excavations established the true extent and importance of this 7th-9th-century emporium whi...

Dong-Son

The classic Bronze Age of North Vietnam (bronze final), dated c500 be to ad 100 and preceded by the Go Bong (c2000-1500 be), Dong-dau (c1500-100 be) and Go Mun (cl000-500 be) phases of the Vietnamese Bronze Age. The Dong-son culture thus overlaps the Chinese conquest of northern Vietnam in 111 bc...

Dong-Dau

The second Bronze Age phase of North Vietnam (bronzemoyen), dated to the second half of the 2nd millennium bc. Bronzes contain about 20 per cent tin, and forms and casting methods are ancestral to those of the classic Dong-son (bronze final) phase. The Dong-dau phase is also classified as a late ...

Domus De Janas

Sardinian name for the type of rock-cut tomb found in the island during the Copper Age and Bronze Age. The term means ‘house of the fairies’ and describes often complex, multi-chambered tombs. See also Anghelu Ruju.

Domestication

The process by which wild plants and animals have been adapted to man’s needs and methods of husbandry. The division between domestic and wild is not clear-cut. Many domestic plants and animals differ markedly from their wild relatives, others are very similar; several have no living wild relativ...

Domesday Book

Survey of land ownership in England after the Norman Conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates how at a council held in Gloucester at Christmas 1085 it was decided to make a record of the number of hides in land existing in each English shire and to establish the amount and value of acreage and...

Dornburg

The 7th-9th century trading settlement of Dornburg was situated upon the sand dunes of the island of Walcheren, north of the Scheldt estuary in the Netherlands. Nothing now remains of the settlement, but plans of the site made in the 19th century and the rich unstratified collection of pottery, m...

Dornburg

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Dolni Vestonice

Perhaps the most important of the central European mammoth-hunters camps of the Upper Palaeolithic. Like Pavlov, it is situated on the loess plains of southern Moravia. The main occupation level dates from the end of an interstadial period when climate was less intensively cold, about 26000 be on...

Dolni Vestonice

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Dolmen

Term once used to describe any megalithic chamber tomb. Today it is used by French archaeologists to describe a megalithic tomb of simple form, whereas in England its use is retained only in the specialized term portal dolmen. In other areas of the world the term is still used in the general sense.

Dolichocephalic

Long-headed, that is, having a cephalic index greater than 75.

Doigahama

Yayoi cemetery in Yamaguchi prefecture, Japan. The remains of at least 200 men and women of various ages were found buried in pits, in extended or flexed position. The presence of iron nails suggests the use of wooden coffins in some cases, while in others a stone was placed at each side of the h...

Doian

A stone industry found exclusively in the southern and eastern areas of Somalia and, perhaps, in the adjacent northeastern part of Kenya. Doian assemblages contain backed microliths and flake scrapers with both unifacial and bifacial points. The industry has not been subjected to recent research ...

Dog

All domestic dogs appear ultimately to have been derived from the wolf. Today’s dogs are the product of very intensive artificial selection and show exceptional variation in size and shape. Selection for particular forms has been so intense that in many breeds of dog it has led to physical deform...

Doc Chua

A recently discovered rich Bronze Age site in southern Vietnam, near Xuan-loc, north of Ho Chi Minh City (former Saigon). Many finds typical of the so-called Dong-son culture have been made here including Chinese-style ko-axes; the presence of these so far south on the Indochinese Peninsula is an...

Doc Chua

archaeologsOthers

Dniester-Bug

See Bug-Dniester.

Dniester-Bug

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Diyala

Tributary of the Tigris River, east of Baghdad in Iraq. In the 1930s important excavations were carried out in this area by the University of Chicago on four sites: Tell Asmar (Eshnunna), Tell Aqrab, Khafaje and Ischali. This allowed the establishment of a pottery sequence for this part of Mesopo...

Divostin

Three-level site of the Early StarCevo phase and early and late parts of the Late VinCa phase, west of Kragujevac in central Serbia, Yugoslavia. The occupations date from c5250-4960 be (Starcevo) to c3900 be and c3300 be (Late Vinca). Open excavation uncovered seven complete house-plans of the La...

Ditch

A common feature of archaeological sites, not only as defensive structures in association with ramparts and walls, but also as a means of drainage or as a construction trench. Large ditches which are allowed to erode, without much interference from man, go through three phases of infilling. Prima...

Distribution

This term is used in two different ways in archaeology. (1) In general it refers to the spatial location of archaeological sites or artefacts. These are usually plotted on one or more distribution maps, which are used in a number of ways. For instance, they may simply indicate the spatial extent ...

Discriminant Analysis

A technque of multivariate analysis. Most discriminant analysis programs perform two operations. One is to calculate discriminant functions and the other is known as ‘classification’. Discriminant Functions. New variables which are calculated from the original, large number of variables. The disc...

Dingo

Australia’s native dog (Canis famil-iaris) and only terrestrial non-marsupial carnivore. Distributed widely on the continent, it does not occur in Tasmania. The oldest well-authenticated dates for dingo bones come from the sites of Fromms Landing (South Australia), Madura Cave, (Western Australia...

Ding

A Chinese tripod bowl with solid legs (compare li). The dingis almost unknown at Yangshao sites but is ubiquitous in pottery of the east-coast Neolithic and of the Henan Longshan culture (sccLongshan, Hemudu). It was made in both pottery and bronze versions throughout the Chinese Bronze Age (see ...

Dinas Powys

An Iron Age hill fort near Cardiff, Wales, which was refurbished in the sub-Roman and medieval periods. Some time in the 5th or 6th century the northern end of the hill was cut off by a modest bank c3 metres wide and 1.5 metres high and a rock-cut ditch. Inside the enclosed area the excavators fo...

Dimolit

Site in Isabela Province, northern Luzon, and one of the earliest Neolithic open sites to have been excavated in the Philippines. The occupation, with pottery, flakes with edge-gloss and postholes of small square houses, probably dates from between 2100 and 1200 be.

Dilmun

A name appearing in Mesopotamian texts of the Early Dynastic, Akkadian and Ur III periods. It seems to be used in two ways, referring sometimes to a mythical land, a sort of Paradise; the epic hero Gilgamesh visited Dilmun in his search for immortality. On other occasions, however, the name Dilmu...

Diffusion

The spread of a technique or cultural trait or a complete way of life from on area to another. This can take place through the movement of people or through the spread of ideas (sometimes known as stimulus diffusion). It is clear that diffusion has often taken place in the past and that it has so...

Dian Kingdom

A barbarian kingdom in southwest China centred on Lake Dian in Yunnan province. According to Chinese sources the Dian royal house traced its descent from a Chu general who invaded Yunnan in the late 4th century bc and remained to rule the local tribes. In 109 bc Dian surrendered to Han armies and...

Diaguita

A cultural group of the southcentral Andes characterized by distinctive ceramic complexes. Two principal sub-groups have been defined: the Argentinian, on the eastern side of the Andes and the Chilean, centred on the western side. Although they have some cultural traits in common (funerary practi...

Dhlo Dhlo

A later Iron Age site located northeast of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Occupation probably began during the 16th century and was marked by the erection of elaborate dry-stone terrace-retaining walls surrounding extensive house-platforms. The foundation of this site, like that of comparable stone structur...

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